[Python-ideas] PEP for enum library type?

[Eli Bendersky]

Hi all,

The ideas thrown around and Tim's prototype in the thread "constant/enum
type in stdlib" show that it's possible to use some metaclass magic to
implement very convenient syntax for enums, while only including them in
the stdlib (no language changes):

from enum import Enum

class Color(Enum):
  RED, BLUE, GREEN

I'm, for one, convinced that with this in hand we should *not* add special
syntax for enums, since the gains would be minimal over the above proposal.

While the parallel thread (and Tim's Bitbucket issue tracker) discusses his
proposed implementation, I think it may be worthwhile to start from the
other direction by writing a PEP that aims to include this in 3.4. The way
I see it, the PEP should discuss and help us settle upon a minimal set of
features deemed important in an enum.

If that sounds OK to people, then someone should write that PEP :-) This
could be Tim, or Barry who's been maintaining flufl.enum for a long time.
If no one steps up, I will gladly do it.

Thoughts?

Eli
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