I think it's a misconception to think of Django and Rails as "introductory frameworks". These are production ready frameworks that can scale to meet a variety of (though not all) business needs.
My intention of the word introductory was not to feel like training wheels. Joeri in this thread says:
>>You have to trade off developer productivity for performance when it comes to choosing frameworks. The slower the framework the more it does for you.
And in that respect, the more the framework does for a developer, the better it is probably suited a starting point for new developers. It is a badge of success that Django and Rails can be able to serve a whole spectrum of needs.
When it comes to "learning" frameworks, I don't think the highest level of abstraction is necessarily the best. Some are better able to cope with black-box behavior than others. For those who feel the need to understand their tools as they use them, I'm of the view that the Sinatras of the world are a better starting point.
