Yes (de)referencing can be a PITA sometimes but you've probably forgotten that your example code could have been better written like this:

    $hash1->{key1}{key2}

And if `hash1` was a hash (instead of a hashref) then it's just this:

    $hash1{key1}{key2}

The `%{}` de-reference you mention later is only when you have an operation that requires a hash, for eg:

    keys %{$hash1{key1}}

And for kstrauser example later in Python...

    hash1["hash_name"]["array_name"][3]

the equivalent in Perl would be...

    $hash1{hash_name}{array_name}[3]

I find having {} & [] as lookup keys for their types is not only more explicit but also safer/correct.