Eran Medan

Recommended syntax for this is to use an implicit value class to avoid runtime creation of a wrapper class: http://docs.scala-lang.org/overviews/core/value-classes.html

implicit class BlingString(string: String) extends AnyVal {
    def bling = "*" + string + "*"
}

I like plastic's visual merge tool, they also support github, for me it took all the pain out of merges (auto or manual) http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2012/04/using-plastic-scm-as-github-client.html