I've spent year and a half writing chef as my first "programming" job, like 6 years ago. I learned almost 0 ruby, and that's probably why ruby didn't stick that much.
Yeah, I suspect this might be one reason why Ruby hasn't gained as much traction as others: knowledge doesn't translate well between frameworks, so there's little advantage to re-using the same language for a new project (unless it's a new project in the framework you're already comfortable with).
lolinder|2 years ago