I know you guys can’t get enough of this Rails thing. It’s teh pop0lar href!! Follow that train. Mike Clark has interviewed David Heinemeier Hansson on automation in Rails.

Mike: Sounds like you’ve tried to automate everything that will be the same on most projects.

David: We basically try to make it so that the only thing you need to create is application-specific functionality. All the infrastructure is already configured and ready to run. That means it’s much, much easier to get off to a good start with testing, revision control (we backup your DB schema for you), and the like.

So even though we call it a Rails skeleton, when you create a new empty application, it’s actually more a fully fleshed, but undressed body you’re dealing with (yeah, Rails is that sexy :)).

I’m positive you Railsickos get off on this kind of stuff. (Listen close and hear the sound of #rubyonrails collectively issuing /me swoons.)