What are the differences between a Java enum and a class with private constructor? [duplicate]

Answer 1

The main difference is the each enum class implicitly extends Enum> class. This leads to that:

1. enum objects have such methods as name() and ordinal()
2. enum objects have special toString(), hashCode(), equals() and compareTo() implementations
3. enum objects are suitable for switch operator.

All mentioned above is not applicable for your version of Direction class. This is the "meaning" difference.