[Python-ideas] str-type enumerations

[random832 at fastmail.us]

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013, at 12:23, Ethan Furman wrote:
> In the example above 'Mn$' is the field, and '(1,6)' are the first six
> charecters in the field.  So the custom mapping 
> has to parse the key passed to in in order to return the proper value; it
> looks something like this:

Why is this a string instead of a tuple ('Mn$',1,6) or a class
specifically designed for this?