Threading is a good thing to learn. It's becoming more prevalent, and as the implementations mature, and multiple CPU machines become more popular, it will become a more valuable skill. Or put another way, you'll need to be good at threads one day.

Try perlthrtut, and of course, PerlMonks - there are many tutorials, helpful hints, and patient folks willing to help.

Now the caveats - if this project has a challenging deadline, or if you anticipate difficulties, or if this is a high-profile app with low tolerance for bugs, you may want to back off threads.