Ruby can run some programs as if on the command line, the mechanisms are pretty much the same as Perl would run them, backticks are a blessing in many respects.  It took some finding but the main three mechanisms are:

• Kernel.system
• Kernel.exec
• %x[]

For more on these I went through the Ruby book but also this site to find out more on how these options operate.  This took me hours to find so I wanted a space to hold this info so I could find it again.