Why are two AtomicIntegers never equal?

Question

I stumbled across the source of AtomicInteger and realized that

new AtomicInteger(0).equals(new AtomicInteger(0))

evaluates to

Answer 1

On the face of it, it seems like a simple omission but it maybe it does make some sense to actually just use the idenity equals provided by Object.equals

For instance:

AtomicInteger a = new AtomicInteger(0)
AtomicInteger b = new AtomicInteger(0)

assert a.equals(b)

seems reasonable, but b isn't really a, it is designed to be a mutable holder for a value and therefore can't really replace a in a program.

also:

assert a.equals(b)
assert a.hashCode() == b.hashCode()

should work but what if b's value changes in between.

If this is the reason it's a shame it wasn't documented in the source for AtomicInteger.

As an aside: A nice feature might also have been to allow AtomicInteger to be equal to an Integer.

AtomicInteger a = new AtomicInteger(25);

if( a.equals(25) ){
    // woot
}

trouble it would mean that in order to be reflexive in this case Integer would have to accept AtomicInteger in it's equals too.