[Squeakfoundation]core addon packages

[Rob Withers]

From: "Stephen Pair" <spair@acm.org>
> You have more faith than I in the consensus building process...but sure,
> the fittest solutions in each of those areas will emerge over time and
> different implementations will converge on a single solution.

Stephen,

I do have a lot of faith in squeak and its community.  The entire focus of
squeak releases has now fundamentally shifted with the change in ownership
of  release managment to SqF and the Guides.  Now I don't want to jump into
the infeasibility in my excitement, but I finally see concrete evidence that
the way forward for squeak lies in a phase of rigourous deconstruction of
the monolithic image to result in a reconstructable base.

The only point I'm attempting to make is based on the fact that there are
areas of core functionality in any modern language that propably wont be in
the teaniest image, but which ought to be standardized and well documented
and a commitment made to preserve that API.  Areas where weakness in the
current squeak model exists are those areas where we see alternatives
discussed or start to appear.  Right off the bat, I think of the sockets api
and the FileDirectory api.

NB.  (what does NB mean?  :)   I finally realized the practical implications
of the flow model when I quickly looked for a way to play a streaming mp3
from the web.  In the base image, i couldn't find a way to play from
somafm.com nor any way to quickly hack it together. :(

cheers,
rob