Interesting Things
Aliasing ActiveRecord reader methods
ActiveRecord reader methods are not eagerly loaded, and as such cannot be aliased using alias_method. There are a number of workarounds to this, those talked about included: calling self.define_read_methods, after which all your read methods will be loaded and available for aliasing, or you can simply define the alias instead of using alias_method.
belongs_to and foreign keys.
If you specify an alternate foreign key when using belongs to, you will have access to that id via the name of the foreign key, and not the name of the belongs_to association. It may be worthwhile allowing access to the id via the belongs_to association in order to keep consistency.
boo
BOOOO!!!!! BOOOOOOOOO!
You could also use alias_attribute : http://noobkit.com/show/ruby/rails/rails-stable/activesupport/module/alias_attribute.html