[Python-Dev] Best practices for Enum

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ethan Furman writes:

 > I will certainly ask for advice on which modules to spend my time
 > on.  I know enums are not a cure-all, but they are great for
 > debugging and interactive work.

Especially in new code where they are used throughout.  Not so in the
existing stdlib, I expect.

The concrete limitation on that theory that I envision with
retrofitting the stdlib is that cooperative modules (those that call
into and are called from the module being converted to use enums) are
going to be expecting values, not enums.  So you need to convert
return values and arguments, and not only do you *not* get the benefit
of enum reprs in the cooperating modules, but you introduce additional
complexity in the converted module.  Nor can you say "OK, it's more
than I expected but I'll do the whole stdlib," because you don't know
who is calling into or supplying callbacks to the stdlib modules.

I expect you would recognize these cases quickly, but I imagine
Raymond is feeling a more generic unease, and I can't say I blame him.

In many cases you could convert code to use IntEnum instead of Enum,
preserving the old semantics, and probably not needing to convert
return values, but again I expect the benefits of Enum-ness would
attenuate quickly as cooperating code converts them to int internally.