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> Good design is a relative term. In ruby I frequently see it interpreted as: Pack as many layers of magic as possible, and then test that with as many layers of testing-frameworks as possible.

I have the same feeling sometimes. I wish the Ruby community would not be so concerned with magic and aesthetics, and target clarity.

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From experience and observation, I'd say that in most developer communities (include Rubyists) aesthetics and clarity are one and the same..

I'm referring really to functional clarity. Fancy ruby DSLs that invoke method_missing and parse function names make for aesthetically pleasing end user code, but obfuscate the functionality for anyone unfamiliar with the code base.

Aesthetics and clarity are most certainly different in other ways (think pretty sites vs simple clear sites) but that's another discussion.

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