> Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages.
It's not an idiom, and identity tests exist in other languages. You may know them as "==" (Java), "is" (Python), "eq?" (Scheme) or "object.ReferenceEquals" (C#).
Now the syntax is ugly and this does not excuse the fucked up non-overridable equality, but aside from that `===` works pretty well in Javascript.
As opposed to PHP, which famously did manage to even fail implementing identity correctly[0].
It also has nothing to do with the comment you replied to, which uses `== !` (to operators, an equality to a negated operand)
I'm "ok" with that, it's a property of non-overridable equality tests, where arrays are "standard objects" (with natively implemented lots of things, but still objects) rather than built-in magical special cases of the language (although there are still things done by arrays I don't think you can do without recent extensions to the spec, such as
js> var a = []
js> a[42] = 3
3
js> a.length
43
) as opposed to e.g. Go where a few blessed types have access to features Go users do not have any possible access to.
It bothers me significantly more that
[1] == 1
does not return false in JS. Although the rules through which this is reached are clear.
