Same with the Node.js community. When I moved from Rails to Node.js, the focus on small libraries held together by an exceptional package manager was a huge breath of fresh air.
If anything, Rails poisons things in the Ruby community because the monolithic approach of the biggest framework in the community simply works against small libraries with small interfaces that are very compatible and remixable.
In fact, one of the best developments in the Ruby community lately has been the increase of other frameworks like grape, padrino, rack, sinatra, etc. I know some of these have been around for a long time, but it wasn't until Rails started getting long in the tooth that they started getting more and more attention.
If anything, Rails poisons things in the Ruby community because the monolithic approach of the biggest framework in the community simply works against small libraries with small interfaces that are very compatible and remixable.
In fact, one of the best developments in the Ruby community lately has been the increase of other frameworks like grape, padrino, rack, sinatra, etc. I know some of these have been around for a long time, but it wasn't until Rails started getting long in the tooth that they started getting more and more attention.