swiftlang
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 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:01:02 AM 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
10 sourcesWhile I don't think adding C++ interoperability is one of the'mashup of features', one example of a feature that adds complexity and conflicts is the function builders (result builders)[0].
It doesn't interact well with other language features (e.x. if let wasn't supported for a long time), it isn't really extensible (transforms are specified by the language), and yet it adds a bunch of complexity in both the language, implementation and reading code.
It seems clear, at least to me, that this is something that happens if you try to make a feature 'generic' without a lot of time and design consideration, due to Apple's internal politics on SwiftUI. I like SwiftUI, and some features that support it are great (like custom attributes), but I firmly think that they should have taked the time to produce a better design.
[0]: https://github.com/
Read the rest
Well I think that's because they aren't yet an official part of the language until that proposal is accepted, and Apple is shipping them as a custom extension to Swift that they hope to remove at some point.
Edit: Also the current version of the proposal is here: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In A deep dive into Swift’s function buildersGreat article. As someone new to Swift and SwiftUI, the lack of official documentation around these function builders is frustrating. The best I could find was a draft proposal [1].
[1]: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/9992cf3c11c2d5...
In A deep dive into Swift’s function buildersMultiple Trailing Closures in Swift
1 points · Open discussionOk let me get it here cause there are a lot of misunderstanding my post on top.
Swift have built in simd same about Rust
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
Nim have arraymancer https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer
@inbounds it is just compiler option u can use it in any language with LLVM backend i would be suprised if Julia will be faster then Rust/Swift or Nim in this regard.
But True about GO in that particular case.
In Julia 1.4Perhaps this helps? https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
and this
https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/1202260205074968578
In JuliaLang: The Ingredients for a Composable Programming LanguageI 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 like this are pretty frustrating because they seem to reflect a focusing on tiny bits of sugar (can we even call them that?) instead of features that have a much more positive influence experience.
Besides "better error messages" how do any of these things improve the development experience?
`map(\.name) vs map { $0.name }`. Why...?
`callAsFunction()` feels bizarre... how is `obj()` more elegant or less confusing than `obj.callAsFunction()`.
Meanwhile the Swift dev experience still has lots of annoying bugs & usability issues (though to its credit it has improved by leaps about bounds). My personal pet peeve is that sensible compiler synthesized inits[1] still have no
Read the rest
t been implemented despite requests (and proposals!) coming up again[2] and again[3] and again[4] and again[5]
Sometimes I wonder if anyone is actually asking questions like "what value is this providing to the user?". Maybe there's so many strong opinions nothing of substance can get through the approval process?
Announcements like this[6] get me excited that the language is heading in the right direction, but it'll be a lot more convincing when the a release shows that.
[1] https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
[2] https://forums.swift.org/t/it-should-be-possible-to-generate...
[3] https://forums.swift.org/t/explicit-memberwise-initializers/...
[4] https://forums.swift.org/t/default-struct-initializer-intern...
[5] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26224693/how-can-i-make-...
[6] https://forums.swift.org/t/on-the-road-to-swift-6/32862
Well, what is a good example?
The proposal doesn't seem to have one.
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In What’s New in Swift 5.2You can read the motivation in the evolution proposal: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposa...
In What’s New in Swift 5.2