c++ - Do we really need "enum class" in C++11?

Question

When we have,

struct E { enum E_ { HELLO }; }; // 'E' is inheritable

then why do we need,

enum class E { HELLO };  // 'E' is not inheritable

IMO 2nd version doesn't offer more features than the 1st. I don't think that enum class is introduced just to save 2 curly braces {};! Am I missing any important aspect ?

As a minor question, is there any difference between enum class and enum struct other than syntax (because both have public access specifier) ?

Answer 1

Besides what was already mentioned, an advantage of enum class is better type safety - the enum class enumerators don't convert implicitly to integers.