[sn1de]

I went through a cycle of: study ruby -> start using rails -> seems magical -> realize you don't know ruby yet -> study more -> rails no longer feels magical. I suspect this is typical given that there is lot more to ruby than appears on the surface and rails heavily leverages the metaprogramming capabilities.

[montblanc]

Yes not bothering learning Ruby when picking up Rails is very common...and sure, things look quite bizarre when you have no idea what's going on.