The ActiveRecord example, to me, is an example of "clever". Any code that exhibits "spooky action at a distance" is too clever, in my opinion. When I can't hand trace a method or function and see what's going on, it is too "clever" - or at least it isn't "explicit".

Spring in the Java world does this with it's XML configuration and code injection based on annotations. You can't decipher what's going on by code examination. To code in Spring you have to fully understand the Spring framework. Rails (to me at least) is similar. The steep learning curve makes them less hackable.

With Clojure, by contrast, you can always look at a function or macro and (eventually) grok what's happening.