7.10. Conclusion

The ability to model associations is what makes Active Record more than just a data-access layer. The ease and elegance with which you can declare those associations are what make Active Record more than your ordinary object-relational mapper.

In this chapter, we covered the basics of how Active Record associations work. We started by taking a look at the class hierarchy of associations classes, starting with AssociationProxy. Hopefully, by learning about how associations work under the hood, you’ve picked up some enhanced understanding about their power and flexibility.