Here's a change that has been a long time coming. (Really. The first time I heard DHH mention he wanted to do this was in March of 2006.) I liked it so much that I've been playing shepherd for it to make sure it happens. So if you're on edge, now is the time. In 1.2.x and previous, the name of the foreign key of a belongs_to association is inferred to be the name of the association's class plus "_