The jump from third person to first and back to third here is confusing:
"Dave's thoughts on this were based on his early experiences trying
teaching himself Java and Perl. Reflecting on Ralph's advice helped me
realize that the attributes of a language are not the only way to
shorten feedback loops, and are not of primary importance. In
hindsight, Dave realized that"
Maybe Adewale is speaking here, and this is gramatically correct, but that's not obvious and it messes with the flow of the paragraph.