"Ruby programming tends to favor 'magic'." Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It has also been said tha

"Ruby programming tends to favor 'magic'." Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It has also been said that you "Cast Spells" in Lisp: http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html SICP: "People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells." I think lack of understanding of the semantics of Ruby and Rails causes people to dismiss it as "magic". Create new classes, methods ... etc at runtime is not a sign of laziness. Not wanting to spend the time it takes to learn how metaprogramming is used in Rails is.