It's good to hear you say that Java is a fad because I don't know Java, but there are more Java jobs, and with some of the not-so-good comments I've been hearing about Perl 6, I would recommend that someone learn Java instead of Perl if they had to choose, even if they think they want to do mostly web work.

I could imagine people reading the reviews of Perl 6 when it comes out and hearing of the complaints, which are already circulating, and the bugs. People will base their opinion of Perl on Perl 6 and might choose something else. And who knows how Python and others will improve. Perl's future might not be secure.