On invoking overridable method from constructors Simply put, this is wrong because it unnecessarily opens up possibilities to MANY bugs. When the @Override is invoked, the state of the object may be inconsistent and/or incomplete. A quote from Effective Java 2nd Edition, Item 17: Design and document for inheritance, or else prohibit it: There are … Read more
Yes, it is important if your item will be used as a key in a dictionary, or HashSet<T>, etc – since this is used (in the absence of a custom IEqualityComparer<T>) to group items into buckets. If the hash-code for two items does not match, they may never be considered equal (Equals will simply never … Read more
The theory (for the language lawyers and the mathematically inclined): equals() (javadoc) must define an equivalence relation (it must be reflexive, symmetric, and transitive). In addition, it must be consistent (if the objects are not modified, then it must keep returning the same value). Furthermore, o.equals(null) must always return false. hashCode() (javadoc) must also be … Read more