I use puppet in a mostly Python shop. I like that it uses a DSL and not raw Ruby/Pyhton/etc. However, I diagree with TFA about Ruby becoming the dominant language for a very simple reason: all UNIX-like systems have sh and in recent ones it supports all the same things. Most distros which I would consider installing onto servers, managed workstations, etc. have a Python interpreter and a standard library which includes everything from process management to a web server. These two tools are ubiqutous. However, not many distros ship with Ruby installed. Writing a 200 line Ruby script means that it is noe your job to ensure you have Ruby on all your machines, not the dist maintainers'.