Why some model class methods return 'properties' instead of being actual model class attributes

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

Very newbie to the framework, this is just something came to mind and can’t figure it out.

I am talking about class methods like ‘attributeLabels’ or ‘rules’ that return a multidimensional array value-pairs ‘properties’.

Why are those class-methods instead of class-attributes? is it just a design taste, or am i missing something?

2

Easy: it allows us to put logic into these methods.

For example, attributeLables() can return different result depending on the current scenario ("Image" for "insert" and "New image" for "update" scenario).