"Nicolas Cellier"<nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Then, the harder work begins:
> - File/Socket/Pipe
> - Pointers (in External Heap)
> - Character encoding/decoding

I just published XtreamsDevelopment(387) with following changes:

* abstracted Encoder out of encoded streams to allow implementing our own encodings.
* Encoder.Encoders registers known encoders
* Encoder.DialectEncoder provides a hook to access dialect specific encoders
* added ASCIIEncoder implementing ASCII encoding portably
* added VWEncoder wrapping VisualWorks StreamEncoders

Obviously VWEncoder won't work in Squeak and should eventually move to a VW specific package. But at the moment it might be useful as an example of how to take advantage of the existing encoders in Squeak. I briefly looked at the Multilingual categories in Pharo and there seem to be quite a few encodings available through the TextConverter hierarchy. You've expressed some reservations about that, but it might be worth taking advantage of those at least initially. Anyway with the above there should be at least an #ascii encoder available for now.