Enumerated types... what's the point?

[Henry Spencer]

In article <1990Mar22.053148.10351 at ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> dks at shumv1.ncsu.edu (D. K. Smith) writes:
>... I have not RTFM'd the C scriptures but my 
>immediate reaction is "what's the point!...I could just as easily
>used #define and accomplished the same thing.  

Enumerated types were basically a kludge.  X3J11 seriously debated leaving
them out entirely.  Arguments about not breaking existing code, etc, led
to them being left in, but as a flavor of integer rather than as real live
independent types.  That's all they ever were in C.
-- 
US space station:  8 years    |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
and still no hardware built.  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu