> Which means it has methods such as __getitem__, __setitem__, etc., which means those methods can implement whatever is needed to give the namespace the desired semantics (within Python syntax).

Ah, _that_'s what you had in mind. (All this time, I thought _auto_ was just a shorter name for _generate_next_value_.:) I'm ok with that. But aren't we then back to square one? (Using magic of the same kind as the "declarative style" that Raymond pronounced not Pythonic enough.)

Even Raymond says
> As long as _auto_ has been defined somewhere (i.e. from enum import _auto_), it is normal Python

I'm sure he didn't think of the loophole you're currently exploiting. :-D

But anyway, I'm happy. Parentheses are there, so the intuition of calling a function to execute code is respected, and if you get out free with this hack, it opens a door a bit wider for complete declarative solution in the future.