https://twitter.com/mattt/status/1059805674689847296

swift-unicode-name-escape-pre-pitch.swift

/* 
 # Problem

 In Swift, it can be cumbersome to work with Unicode characters that are 
 non-printing, confusable, or have difficulty rendering in the editor.

 For example, to generate the "Family: Woman, Girl" emoji:
*/

// Option 1: Unicode Scalar Value Escapes
"\u{1F469}\u{200D}\u{1F467}"

// Option 2: Commented Declaration + Interpolation
let zwj: Character = "\u{200D}" // ZERO WIDTH JOINER
"👩\(zwj)👧"


/* 
  # Proposed Solution 
  Add \N{name} escape sequence for named Unicode characters.
*/

"\N{WOMAN}\N{ZERO WIDTH JOINER}\N{GIRL}"


// Consider the 24 Unicode characters
// comprising the Punctuation, Dash [Pd] category,
// such as:

/*
  U+002D  HYPHEN-MINUS           -
  U+2010  HYPHEN                 ‐
  U+2011  NON-BREAKING HYPHEN    ‑
  U+2012  FIGURE DASH            ‒
  U+2013  EN DASH                –
  U+2014  EM DASH                —
  U+2015  HORIZONTAL BAR         ―
  U+2E3A  TWO-EM DASH            ⸺
  U+2E3B  THREE-EM DASH          ⸻
*/

// Which of these would you rather find in a code base?
"‒? \u{2012}? or \N{FIGURE DASH}?"


// The \N{} escape sequence is obscure,
// but supported in Python and a few other languages.
// Most notably, though, it's the output you get
// when you call the method `applyingTransform(_:reverse:)`
// with the `.toUnicodeName` transform:

import Foundation

"🍩".applyingTransform(.toUnicodeName, reverse: false) // \N{DOUGHNUT}
"\\N{DOUGHNUT}".applyingTransform(.toUnicodeName, reverse: true) // 🍩

Note: as for the naming of the constants (Unicode names are uppercase, with spaces and hyphens, which are invalid names for constants and would need some normalization), there are some precedent on this in SE-0211 which did exactly the same kind of unicode properties naming normalization 😉