Overriding equals method

If you're planning on using your objects in a Hashtable data structure, you should override the hashCode() method.

The reason is that a Hashtable implemented in Java uses a combination of the equals() AND hashCode() methods to do its searching and storing of data.

It depends on what your doing, really.  If this is a class that only YOU will be using, and you know that you won't be using a Hashtable to store your data, then you could get away without overriding hashCode.  But if you're writing a  class to be used in a programming library, then you should override hashCode so others using your class won't have problems.

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