As someone who programs when the urge hits, rather than as a day job, I ended up playing catch up with Rails. Each time I went to start a project, there's be so

As someone who programs when the urge hits, rather than as a day job, I ended up playing catch up with Rails. Each time I went to start a project, there's be some new changes/features in Rails for me to learn. These days, I'm happy coding away in Padrino, which seems to sit between Sinatra and Rails in terms of features and functionality. For me, Rails just became too big to keep up with. It's more fun and productive with a lighter-weight framework that can get you 90% of the way there. For a newcomer to Ruby, it doesn't seem to be the old "watch me write a blog engine in 5 minutes!" anymore. That might be why the other popular frameworks are getting the attention...