update options
Some attribute changes require additional behavior specification, such as specifying whether to update links when renaming.  This is the only thing that
could throw into question the model of using standard attribute assignment-- if the api is  @[card.name][http://card.name] = 'newname',  where/how do you tell it whether to
update links or not. 

One way to handle this is just have additional attributes to specify those behaviors.  @card.on_name_change_update _links = true
This fits in well with the standard update_attributes() mechanism, which in turn should work well with standard CRUD usage in controllers.

@card.update_attributes( :name=>'new-name', :on_name_change_update_links= >true )

if this is the way we go, we should come up with a standard naming scheme:
on_$field_change_$option
when_$field_updated_$option
...