Why are Rails model association results not naturally ActiveRecord::Relations?

Question

I\'m using Rails 3.2.0

Let\'s say I have:

class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :articles
end

c1 = Comment.last

then

Answer 1

Because when you define association, it places in your model:

def #{name}(*args)
  association(:#{name}).reader(*args)
end

.reader() returns AssociationProxy, which removes the .class method and delegates unknown methods to @target through .method_missing.