Ha! that's what I do for a living. I'm the 'script weenie' for our team. I
work mostly in Korn shell and Perl, but also get some Python in there, when I
can.

I agree with you that shell scripting is powerful, and that we have a shortage
of good shell programmers. I also believe that, for someone just beginning to
learn programming, shell scripting might be a bit over their heads. This is why
I recommend Python. Python is very easy for even non-programmers to learn. As
people become used to a Linux (or Unix) environment, and also learn the
fundamentals of programming, they can move on to things like shell programming,
C, Java, Perl, etc...