Pluralization in Rails… what for?

Question

I know that macros like has_many in Rails use pluralization. What i wasnt able to find is a reason for that behavior. If I have a class Number, i'd write has_many :numbers, but where is the benefit of it? I mean, im talking about a program, not a poem.

Does 'number' state "Im ref to a scalar" and' numbers' state "Im an array"…?

From what i've seen in the sourecode of has_many, im not shure where the translation from plural to singular occures and if it is possible to instead use a different approach for my own code. Is it possible to have ActiveRecord just use singular forms or – lets say – pluralize to §singular to mark a collection without breaking string.pluralize capabillity?

Answer 1

Ruby, and by extension Rails strive to be programmer friendly. An important part of that is having human readable code, therefore Rails developers have made it so that you would have a plural name where plain English calls for a plural.

It also helps to distinguish between a single object and a collection of objects, at first glance. Makes it a lot easier to read somebody else's code.

Answer 2

It is a simple linguistic cue as to whether you are dealing with a collection or a single instance. It just removes much mental churn as you don't have to consciously think about collection vs. instance.