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It's open source.

I played with it a bit and then read the source. Poof! Magic gone.

Yup. Not only is it Open Source, but there's a plethora of blog posts and articles just a Google search away that'll explain pretty much every aspect of how Rails works (seriously.. it's been blogged to death and back).

When people say it's magic, what they're really saying is: "It's unfamiliar to me, and I'm to lazy to go find out how it works. So rather than just STFU, I'm gonna complain about too much 'magic'." :-)

You guys are right, no one should ever write a book. About anything, ever.

Huh? Where do you get that? I think people writing books is awesome, but I don't recall my comment saying anything about that. I was just commenting on the people who dismiss Rails as "having too much magic", when what they really mean is that they're uncomfortable with how different it is from what they're used to. Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong with trying a new technology (Rails, Erlang, Node.js, whatever) and deciding it's not for you. There's also nothing wrong with not trying a new tech because you're just to damn busy with something else. :-). What I object to is people who just grab a "soundbyte" like "too much magic" as an excuse for not forming an honest opinion about something.

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