A design goal of Rails 3 is to have less magic than Rails 2. I think that's a good change. Less magic please.

Django, because it doesn't have so much of that special magic. That's why I like it, it works and you know why and how it works. I have no idea if that makes sense. shrug

Rails. Anyway, I am not saying that Rails is better. I am just wondering how magical Django is?

I like Python and I like the way Django does controllers (not so much the template engine though). But I cannot use Django or any Python, Ruby or PHP setup in my current project because I'm keeping a lot of data in memory and that doesn't work with multi-process architectures.

So I'm using a very small dispatcher Servlet to pass JSON messages on to POJOS and do all the templating in the browser using jquery.

I'm bored to death (and rather annoyed) by Java so I'm always looking for alternatives that support my architecture.

Django works for me, too. Doesn't generate a whole bunch of folders and files. Feels lightweight but works for big projects too.

I used to be pretty big into Zend. I didn't like ActiveRecord in Ruby, or it always felt too confining, and liked the additional control over my models that Zend gave me.

I've recently become a Django convert (not for the pony, that was new to me just now) because the framework just works. I haven't quite worked out the magic required to stand up a Django/MySQL/Apache/Mod_Python server on Windows yet, but it's working perfectly in my VM, so I haven't pursued it very far yet.