How and Why the Astrophysics Source Code Library Was Formed

The Astrophysical Source Code Library (ASCL) was created in 1999 to help save astrophysics from becoming an opaque wasteland of uncheckable claims. Additional impetuses included allowing increased code use via sharing, and creating open codes that can be expanded with community input. In the early 2000s, however, few codes were submitted, and most contacted scientists refused to have their codes listed in the ASCL. A key reason was that the requested codes were not pretty and it took time to beautify them, and that this time was better used to write more code, generate more results, and publish more papers. The ASCL was initially housed on the Asterisk, a phpBB bulletin board primarily used for discussions of the Astronomy Picture of the Day. (APOD). The current ASCL Editor expanded the code base by a factor of 100. Suggestions are sought about what direction the ASCL should take in the future.