[engineerDave]

Not a knock on you but maybe you're too new to Rails too.

I've been using Rails for 10+ years now and setting up a phoenix app is very intuitive. A lot of "oh this is like X in Rails". IME most of the complexity was around JavaScript and that's changed with esbuild.

However it sets up with very similar patterns to Rails. Something I'd expect as it's creators came from Rails. Usually the differences are specific to FP vs OO.

Admittedly coming in from another language especially with an OO background would be harder as it's a smaller community than Rails and doesn't have 10 years of documentation sitting out there. That said documenting elixir code is much easier IMO, so that is sure to change. Also the scope of FP languages requires significantly less documentation IME.

The only thing vs Rails that I have found somewhat needing more attention in Phoenix is SSO integration but it's there and progressing especially with the Phoenix 1.6 changes.