[davelnewton]

Couldn't disagree more, but I think you're taking the term "magic" too literally.

There is a ton of magic in Rails. It consists primarily of magic. I've been doing Rails since <1yr of introduction (Ruby for longer than that, and Lisp for longer than either). I'm very familiar with metaprogramming. Metaprogramming fits the canonical definition of magic in this context.

Ruby, and Rails, also makes it very easy, and seductive, to add more magic. This is powerful, but dangerous. Like Lisp macros. Understanding the magic is not just a matter of "understanding the conventions" and reading the docs.