This sounds like a plethora of issues; I'd like to summarise your comments ¹:

• You've not coded OO before.
• You're working on someone else's code
• Your task has changed unfavourably
• You have an iminent deadline.
• The program is suffering feature creep.
• Your anxious that maintaining OO might all be frustrating

For my money OO is fun, but sometimes it can be over complicated and hard to fix. But like all Perl it's worth knowing and using prudently.

Getting OO experience is tricky, ideally you'd have a mentor to guide you. merlyn has written a pretty good tutorial, as ever I'll mention Mr Conway's book, it rocks. Of course there is also perlmonk's own tutorials

OO is overwrought for small applications. This is Perl, there are ways around it (oh yes ;). With looming dead-lines (and bad code) good practice isn't high on the agenda, nor should it be. Hack my friend, hack like the wind. Learn OO in fullness later and fix poorly designed code during a lull.

For work issues, we need a well-measured response from someone with many years experience in development. My only real advice is pass the stress to your manager. (I bet you've done that already ;), but it is important to define the remit of your responsibility, to do your job well.

(1.) Because some folk seem to be wearing OO only blinkers, and I feel there are more answers to give than what OO is, and how it should be used. I can't answer all these points, so please add relevant stuff.

--

Brother Frankus.