SQLAlchemy apparently can't store a subclass of str into a CharField (wtf)

celery/events/state.py

@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ class Task(Element):
     def update(self, state, timestamp, fields):
         if self.worker:
             self.worker.on_heartbeat(timestamp=timestamp)
-        if state < self.state:
+        if states.state(state) < states.state(self.state):
             self.merge(state, timestamp, fields)
         else:
             self.state = state

celery/states.py

@@ -95,13 +95,13 @@ class state(str):
     def __le__(self, other):
         return self.compare(other, lambda a, b: a >= b, False)
 
-PENDING = state("PENDING")
-RECEIVED = state("RECEIVED")
-STARTED = state("STARTED")
-SUCCESS = state("SUCCESS")
-FAILURE = state("FAILURE")
-REVOKED = state("REVOKED")
-RETRY = state("RETRY")
+PENDING = "PENDING"
+RECEIVED = "RECEIVED"
+STARTED = "STARTED"
+SUCCESS = "SUCCESS"
+FAILURE = "FAILURE"
+REVOKED = "REVOKED"
+RETRY = "RETRY"
 
 READY_STATES = frozenset([SUCCESS, FAILURE, REVOKED])
 UNREADY_STATES = frozenset([PENDING, RECEIVED, STARTED, RETRY])