Yes, grepping for a function and not finding it anywhere in the codebase is very annoying. I've had to maintain this sort of thing before. It's like in bash saying `${FOO_$BAR}` (if such a thing is possible). It gives me shudders.

I also agree that Rails gets a pass. It's a little different when you have a stable (well, sort of :-) API with dozens of books and thousands of blog posts. It was annoying to learn what was going on at first, but that knowledge is more long-lasting so worth a bit more pain.