What is the meaning of the Java's Enum declaration?

Question

Surfing on the source code of Java, I found the following declaration:

public abstract class Enum<E extends Enum<E>>

How should it be interpreted? I'm stuck with it...

Thank you.

Answer 1

You're not alone. Ken Arnold had this to say:

Or, to show the same point in brief, consider this: Enum is actually a generic class defined as Enum<T extends Enum<T>>. You figure it out. We gave up trying to explain it.

(from the blog entry Generics Considered Harmful)