Update: Statement from Austin

…I’d like to appreciate my heartfelt thanks to everyone who reached out to me one way or another. It’s clear to me that the Swift, Apple platform developers, and swift-evolution communities are amazing, and that the people in them are kind, wonderful, generous, passionate, and caring. The Core Team in particular has done an incredible job shepherding the community, befriending people on and off the lists, and leading an open-source project of great technical and social complexity.

After thinking about things, I plan to continue participating in swift-evolution and looking for new ways in which I can serve the Swift and Apple developer communities. I hope to listen more, speak less, be more sensitive to other peoples’ feelings, and offer fair, well-considered feedback.

Often the Swift core team will ask for community help to develop and sponsor a proposal. I’ve worked on several of these. These proposals are generally aimed towards simplifying the compiler, enhancing the language, or addressing technical issues that place stumbling blocks in the effective delivery of compilation.

The reconsideration of SE-0110 should not reflect in any negative way on Austin Zheng. He worked hard on a proposal whose intent was to serve the large Swift developer community. I congratulate Austin for shepherding through this proposal, which can be a long, frustrating process.

The usability regression was unexpected. I applaud the core team for its flexibility in responding to the community’s real concerns when its implementation showed issues.

Today, Austin tweeted:

If my posting of the SE-0110 notice last night contributed to a negative atmosphere, I apologize. I have written to Austin and I hope he will reconsider his decision and rejoin Swift Evolution.