Why equals and hashCode were defined in Object?

Question

What\'s the reasoning behind decision to include these methods in the java.lang.Object? Equality and hashing doesn\'t make sense for many classes.

It would be more l

Answer 1

Mhh not sure but when Java 1.0 was released generics did not exist yet. They were added in Java 5.0 in 2004.. so your proposal could not be implemented for Java 1.0