I think alot of major frameworks written in other languages have all if not most of the features Rails has. Django, Pylons, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Catalyst, and Mason are to name a few.
Rails to make your life easier? well that's true if your creating web apps that fit into RoR's philosophy. To quote a member of HN "Coloring outside the lines is not allowed".
I do agree with you on one thing though, I believe the massive boost in Ruby's popularity is the great marketing campaign behind it.
In a manner of speaking yes, just take a look at the massive spike in mindshare Rails has garnered since it's release. Let's take into consideration the passive influence it also has on framework developers as well.
Nearly every mainstream framework we know has at least been influence by RoR.
True, but that's not because people can't get the annoying ideas out of their head, it's because of the legitimate innovation that Rails brought into the mainstream.
Rails to make your life easier? well that's true if your creating web apps that fit into RoR's philosophy. To quote a member of HN "Coloring outside the lines is not allowed".
I do agree with you on one thing though, I believe the massive boost in Ruby's popularity is the great marketing campaign behind it.