Yes, I think you're right. But the burden for generating and maintaining the enums is on the developer; whereas in Zig, they can be automatically inferred by the compiler.

I don't think the distinction is super important in application work (for example). But for systems code I can see the benefit of having the compiler tell you, with certainty, why a given function can fail (and why it can't). E.g., a good device driver should handle all its failure modes with care, rather than with a shotgun approach.