Someone asked me today: what programming language would you start out with as a sysadmin?

I said Python :)

Murphy_slaw (who could not log in with Facebook today) says: "you have to know perl, just because there is so much perl out there. and both of the most popular configuration management systems are in ruby"

I prefer python, but usually stick with #!/bin/sh for the easy stuff...

Bash. bash. bash! IMHO, bash scripts are the cornerstone of any efficient sysadmin.

bash, perl, python. Should understand enough Ruby for vagrant if you want to use it.

I wish more sysadmins knew SQL, too.

I guess the real question is here whether sysadmins should just learn "the useful stuff" aka grimy scripts... or whether they should put in the time to become competent programmers in a more general sense.