[willthames]

Ansible is mostly configuration based - Ansible itself is written in python but all you'll typically need to write for most usages is configuration in YAML. So no ruby at all.

There are likely existing roles for most things at http://galaxy.ansible.com/

The Ansible docs at http://docs.ansible.com/ are pretty good, and there are lots of getting started guides most weeks on the Ansible weekly mailing list (https://devopsu.com/newsletters/ansible-weekly-newsletter.ht...)

And there are a few pages on my github blog on a few fundamental principles of modelling configuration e.g. http://willthames.github.io/2014/03/17/ansible-layered-confi... http://willthames.github.io/2014/04/02/modelling-credentials... to give a bit of flavour of how to manage more complicated setups. Installing things is easy, getting the configuration right for your needs is the tricky bit!