Because they're used to using Ruby. The efficiency difference is negligible.

$ time sh -c exit

real 0m0.002s

user 0m0.001s

sys 0m0.000s

$ time ruby -e exit

real 0m0.009s

user 0m0.008s

sys 0m0.000s

OTOH I do agree that it is a bit silly to start a Ruby interpreter if you're only going to use it to shell out :)

Because the "inefficiency" is negligible and "premature optimization" is the root of all evil.

Because the time it would take them to check the arcane shell syntax would dwarf the time it takes for them to throw a Ruby script together.

Because they like using a superior programming language over the cruft that are the shell syntaxes.

Because they can add more fancy stuff and features to the Ruby version far more easily.

Because they can incorporate the Ruby version to a larger program later on.

Because

    file="~/.gitshots/$(date).jpg"
    echo "Taking capture into ${file}!"
    imagesnap -q -w 3 $file

is so arcane.

Even better (the silence principle):

    #!/bin/sh
    imagesnap -q -w 3 "~/.gitshots/$(date).jpg"

(date(1) with spaces will be fine due to the double quotes, although it won't be in date order when sorted by name, which would annoy me...)

No, the options when you need to add something more are arcane.

Plus the above wont even work as is, since $(date) contains spaces.

> Plus the above wont even work as is, since $(date) contains spaces.

This would be "more direct" part.