I have been using Java enums to represent finite values and to provide basic methods on the enum values for some time.

Because enums are automatically Serializable (see Javadoc API documentation for Enum), there is no need to explicitly add the “implements Serializable” clause following the enum declaration.

JPA and Hibernate enum mapping The Java enum, introduced in Java 5, will map to the underlying database without any intervention. The JPA framework, be it Hibernate or Toplink or DataNucleus, will ...