The Option monad pattern thing

This informative post is consolidated in the new blog, at:

 http://www.coolscala.com/wiki/Blog:Cool_Scala/Post:The_Option_monad_pattern_thing

... where we take a closer look at the Option type of Scala, the monadic aspect of it and see how we can use it to inspire new patterns and new ways of looking at the code we write.

(Sorry - original content was removed from here, to avoid duplicates).