title: MySQL ENUM type vs join tables
body: <p><strong>My requirement</strong></p>
  
  <p>A table needs to maintain a <em>status</em> column.</p>
  
  <p>This column represents one of 5 states.</p>
  
  <p><br>
  <strong>initial design</strong></p>
  
  <p>I figured I can just make it an integer column and represent the states using a numeric value.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>0 = start</li>
  <li>1 = running</li>
  <li>2 = crashed</li>
  <li>3 = paused</li>
  <li>4 = stopped</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Since I don't want my app to maintain the mapping from the integers to their string description, I plan to place those in a separate state description table (relying on a FK relation).</p>
  
  <p>Then I discovered that MySQL has an ENUM type which matches my requirement exactly.
  Other than a direct dependency on MySQL, are there any pitfalls with using the ENUM type?</p>