[lostdog]

Unfortunately a standard library doesn't really reduce churn. It just means to you chunks of the standard library being deprecated, which can be confusing. For example, what's the common way to download a file from the web in Python?

Instead, I think every language should have a list of batteries-suggested libraries, with a roughly 2 year turnover period. This way you get a community suggested group of the common functionality needed to be productive. It won't change so frequently that you're constantly looking up function names, but it also won't get sclerotic, and can move from old grungy libraries to new libraries when necessary. Of course, you can always just stick with an old "edition" of the community libs if you've got a legacy app that you don't want to migrate.