Or, they could just learn shell scripting. How much would that cost?

I do not understand why the[1] shell... which is a relatively small language... is so difficult for people to learn.

If you can find the time to learn Ruby, what stops you from learning a shell? What is the cost of ignoring it?

1. Preferably something resembling the proposed POSIX standard which might lend to portability. Bash is not necessarily the best choice unless every server you will ever use will be GNU userland/Linux kernel.