gistfile1.txt

The z in scalaz means this: it was early 2008 and I was working for a Java consultancy 
and so of course, I used the most appropriate tool for the job: scala. But it had 
*terrible* libraries, so I offered to fix those while also meeting my other objectives. 
Turns out that the Scala guys were extremely hostile to even half-decent libraries 
(and still are to this day). I still struggle to wrap my head around this sometimes.

Anyway, so I thought, well fuck it, I will just keep them to myself for now. My (awesome) 
employer had already agreed that we'd probably open-source such a thing, but I was 
concerned most about my primary goal. So then it came time to "name" this library. 
I had named it "scalax" simply so that I did not have the inclination to think of 
a proper name. Then I found out that such a library was being developed and with my 
internal name! Whatever, I thought.

So I looked at this scalax library, hoping that I could just abandon my efforts and 
jump on board with everyone else -- they too had figured out that there were no decent 
libraries for Java/Scala right? WRONG. The scalax effort was a pile of rubbish. 
OK, let's fix it up. WRONG AGAIN and I ran into the usual extreme hostility of the Scala 
community to decent libraries. It was from this day that I committed myself to parodying 
the idiocy of these people and a good deal of them still haven't worked that out 
(a lot have).

So fuck it, back to where I was, but I needed a name. And I could not be bothered 
getting fancy, I had code to write. So then my internal scalax became scalaz, 
it was open-sourced, a few smart people latched onto it immediately and we took off 
from there. Been parodying nonsense ever since.