title: EnumMap vs Properties
body: <p>Does anyone have thoughts on what's superior, <code>EnumMap</code> or <code>Properties</code> (or at least in my situation?) I am using a 3rd party software package that communicates between my code and their application using their method like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code>TheirRuntime.getInstance().getParameter(String paramName)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Currently I have created an <code>enum</code> that works like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public enum MyEnum {
      FOO_BAR ("fooBar"), BAZ_QUUX ("bazQuux");
  
      private final String varName;
      private MyEnum(String varName) {
          this.varName = varName();
      }
      public String varName() {
          return varName();
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Then I store the values in an <code>EnumMap&lt;MyEnum, Double&gt;</code>, which gets updated when the user changes something. My architecture is slightly more complicated than this but I'm omitting some details for the sake of <a href="http://sscce.org" rel="nofollow">SSCCE</a>. Though I will mention that I load the values with something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>for (MyEnum me : MyEnum.values()) {
       TheirRuntime.getInstance().getParameter(me.varName());
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What I'm wondering is, would it make more sense to use <code>Properties</code>? This question has come up because I'm trying to build a test framework that doesn't involve the 3rd party software at all, and I'm trying to figure a good, easy way to load the parameters that doesn't use any 3rd party API calls, and a <code>Properties</code> file seems an easy way to go, which makes me wonder if I should just use <code>Properties</code> in the main class. </p>
  
  <p>Thoughts?</p>