[sethammons]

Can someone help me understand why enums are needed? They only seem like sugar for reducing a few lines while writing. What cannot be achieved without them or what is really a pain point they solve? Maybe it is hard to have a constant with type information?

[brainzap]

The original enum are just enumerated integer constants.

What people want "the ability to express enums with an associated value", I think we should invent a new term.

[masterj]

The term you're looking for is ADT - Algebraic Data Types

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_data_type

[randomdata]

We did: Sum types.