I didn't quite understand this bit: "Going into this I already knew HTML and CSS. I had also already taken AP CS in high school, and CS101 in college. I did we

I didn't quite understand this bit: "Going into this I already knew HTML and CSS. I had also already taken AP CS in high school, and CS101 in college. I did well in both. But despite this I basically wasn't able to code my way out of a paper bag. Why? Firstly, C++ and Java aren't commonly used in (successful) web startups." Are you saying you knew C++ and Java prior to this? I would have thought this would be a great jumping off point into other languages - I found the switch from C++ to Python to be surprisingly easy. Also while start-ups may tend to stick to Ruby or Python, many web companies use Java or Scala (Twitter is probably the highest profile company I can think of). They tend to be higher scale though and it is probably harder to get started with them than with Python or Ruby.