Honestly, the magic thing is really overstated. The most magical thing in rails is that methods are defined on your models based on the framework reading your s

Honestly, the magic thing is really overstated. The most magical thing in rails is that methods are defined on your models based on the framework reading your schema when it launches, which granted, is pretty magical, but ActiveRecord aside there isn't much else. I spent some time doing ASP.net Webforms, now THAT is a magical framework. To the point where I would say only around 1% of the people who used it had the slightest clue as to what was actually happening. Rails doesn't hold a candle to webforms in terms of magic, but for some reason it is always referred to that way, and I have never heard anyone say anything like that for webforms (or seaside, or lift, or yesod)