They might also go in the opposite direction and add runtime APIs to construct types dynamically. Various initiatives (like the Python interop for TensorFlow) are pulling Swift in that direction:
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In Parsing Excel Spreadsheets with Swift's Codable Protocolsswiftlang
swift-evolution
Markdown2015–2026
swiftlang / swift-evolution
swift-evolution
This maintains proposals for changes and user-visible enhancements to the Swift Programming Language.
105Distinct people
154Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
15.9KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
This maintains proposals for changes and user-visible enhancements to the Swift Programming Language.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I love Swift. Writing in it is awesome, the community is great, and it has traditionally been focused on a truly wonderful dev-focused experience. That being said, releases…
joshuawright11 used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 7:02:50 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year154 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-12-03 17:04:39 UTC to 2026-07-10 11:39:51 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 11 | 7 | 4 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 24 | 4 | 20 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 12 | 5 | 7 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 11 | 2 | 9 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 11 | 4 | 7 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 20 | 6 | 14 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 18 | 5 | 13 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 17 | 5 | 12 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Swift Evolution
https://www.swift.org/swift-evolution/
This repository tracks the ongoing evolution of the Swift programming language, standard library, and package manager.
Goals and Release Notes
Swift Language focus areas heading into 2025
CHANGELOG
Version
Announced
Released
Swift 6.4
2026-03-18
2026-09-15
Swift 6.3
2025-10-24
2026-03-24
Swift 6.2
2025-03-08
2025-09-15
Swift 6.1
2024-10-17
2025-03-31
Swift 6.0
2024-02-22
2024-09-17
Swift 5.10
2023-08-23
2024-03-05
Swift 5.9
2023-03-06
2023-09-18
Swift 5.8
2022-11-19
2023-03-30
Swift 5.7
2022-03-29
2022-09-12
Swift 5.6
2021-11-10
2022-03-14
Swift 5.5
2021-03-12
2021-09-20
Swift 5.4
2020-11-11
2021-04-26
Swift 5.3
2020-03-25
2020-09-16
Swift 5.2
2019-09-24
2020-03-24
Swift 5.1
2019-02-18
2019-09-20
Swift 5.0
2018-09-25
2019-03-25
Swift 4.2
2018-02-28
2018-09-17
Swift 4.1
2017-10-17
2018-03-29
Swift 4.0
2017-02-16
2017-09-19
Swift 3.1
2016-12-09
2017-03-27
Swift 3.0
2016-05-06
2016-09-13
Swift 2.2
2016-01-05
2016-03-21
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
5 sourcesSwift for Tensorflow adds language-level support for Tensorflow to Swift. It does start in the fork, but the ultimate goal is for all changes to be merged upstream. Some aspects, like dynamicLookup[0], which allows dot syntax for methods resolved at runtime, are already in the language. Others, like dynamicCallable[1] are accepted proposals.
[0] https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
[2] https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In First-Class Automatic Differentiation in SwiftI don't know if anyone who can edit the blog is reading this, but the link to "SE-0186 Remove ownership keyword support in protocols" is wrong, it should point to https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In Swift 4.1 ReleasedKickstarter uses “Swift Playgrounds for iterative development and styling. Most major screens in the app get a corresponding playground where we can see a wide variety of devices, languages and data in real time.” (The Kickstarter iOS app is open-source [0]; see their playgrounds [1].)
Here’s [2] Brandon Williams’ talk Finding Happiness in Functional Programming (starts at “Playground-Driven Development,” but I suggest watching the whole talk), [3] the Swift Talk episode “Playground-Driven Development” (Brandon Williams and Chris Eidhof), and [4] the Swift Talk episode “Test-Driven Reactive Programming” (Lisa Luo and Chris) wherein they build a small but complete PoC all within Playgrounds.
There are many more examples, such as Chris Lattner’s own Dynamic Member Lookup proposal [5] Python Interop playground [6] and Reactive Swift’s gettin
Read the rest
g started playgrounds [7].
Playgrounds are very much entangled with Swift’s core (value proposition).
[0] https://github.com/kickstarter/ios-oss
[1] https://github.com/kickstarter/ios-oss/tree/master/Kickstart...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0VaIKK2ijM&feature=youtu.be...
[3] https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E51-playground-driven-devel...
[4] https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E53-test-driven-reactive-pr...
[5] https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
[6] https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mo... (download the attachment)
[7] https://github.com/ReactiveCocoa/ReactiveSwift/tree/master/R...
The SEP makes it pretty clear: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
Basically, they did not rename flatMap they renamed one specific overload:
Sequence.flatMap<U>(_: (Element) -> U?) -> [U]
or in Haskell parlance
mapMaybe :: (a -> Maybe b) -> [a] -> [b]
which filters after mapping more than it flattens (in fact the Rust and OCaml versions are called filter_map). The issue is that due to Optional promotion you could misuse flatMap (where you should have used map I guess) and could get this filtering behaviour unexpectedly instead of the straightforward mapping you would be expecting (it also led to extra branches and optional wrappings and unwrappings).
In What's new in Swift 4.1