Just chiming in...

I, too, have this looming over my head for the future and will be following this node closely when I'm finally given my first Java app to write.

My employer signed me up for an intro Java class, which I attended about 18 months ago. For various reasons, other Perl projects kept getting priority over the incoming Java project, so I suspect I've lost what little I was able to learn. I don't think there's a broom big enough to knock the cobwebs off those snippets of knowledge floating around in my head.

One of the most difficult aspects of the class (and actually gave me a headache by the third day), was trying to make my brain go from procedural (I think that's the right word) to object-oriented. For me, that was the biggest challenge -- figuring out the syntax to accomplish what I wanted. Hmmm... that may be why Javascript is still a challenge for me.

I'll check out the sources and suggestions from the other responders to see if there are helpful guides on how to tweak the brain into a different style of programming. :-)

Good luck ropey! Lori