Determine if two values are equal. Implementations should respect the constraints that:

• if x===y then x==y (reflexivity),
• if x==y then y==x (symmetry),
• if x==y and y==z then x==z (transitivity).

Furthermore it is recommended that implementations ensure that if x==y then x and y have the same concrete class.

A class which explicitly refines equals() is said to support value equality, and the equality operator == is considered much more meaningful for such classes than for a class which simply inherits the default implementation of identity equality from Identifiable.