ruby on rails is the new hypercard

I'm not the first to think this, but working through the rails tutorials really felt like being back working with HyperCard. I think it is the speed with which you can get something working that makes it feel similar. Hypercard was basically a loosely database backed rapid application development kit. It got so many people building applications to make their lives better. Simple ones in the main, but Hypercard enabled people to build programs.
Rails feels similar in many ways, it is clean, Ruby gives is a lovely syntax and the MVC model feels right. Certainly there is a surge of interest, in the day between me visiting Foyles and then revisiting to buy the Pragmatic Programmers Agile Web Development with Rails book, they'd sold at least eight copies. Given the advent of high speed broadband and wireless perhaps Rails will allow for a flourishing of home brewed personal apps to make people's lives a better place. (I know all this is possible with perl etc, but RoR seems so much more friendly)