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

If you have a list of objects and you call the contains method what should Java do? I think the default implementation(comparing references) is a decent decision. This way you won't have to implement yourself equals and hashcode for every class you use in a collection.