This is a presentation by Nick Weaver at PuppetConf 2013, although it really doesn’t have to much to do with Puppet I found it to be an interesting talk on the whats and whys of automation.
At the end of the presentation Nick gives his recommendations on how to get started in the field, my 2 cents would be to learn two languages. Learning one is a great start but I think a second will really give you extra flexibility. Most vendors seem to support PowerShell (not always very well) and Ruby. Honestly if you are a pure Windows shop (which is exactly 0 people) then just stick with PowerShell, but if you need need to venture off into supporting anything else then another language would really help with adaptability, just so long as it gets the job done.
