Learning the basics of OO perl isn't hard. While there are esoteric aspects that take longer to learn and understand, the basics are well presented in perlboot, perltoot, perltooc and perlbot, which you can read in a few hours, and there are several articles in Object Oriented Programming which provide an easy introduction to simple objects. With a Java background, I expect you would pick up Perl objects and have a significant return on your investment quite quickly.