hg: jdk7/tl/langtools: 6979683: inconsistent interaction of reference cast with box/unbox conversions leaves out a useful case

[Hollis Waite]

Since Java 7 allows implicit chained casts, should it be legal to compare primitives with Objects via the '==' operator? JLS 15.21 states:


  The equality operators may be used to compare two operands that
  are convertible (§5.1.8) to numeric type, or two operands of
  type boolean or Boolean, or two operands that are each of either
  reference type or the null type. All other cases result in a
  compile-time error.

However, latest JDK accepts the below code:

  Object x = "";
  boolean a = (3 == x);

It seems to me that the new '=' guidelines are inconsistent with official (but not *actual*) behavior of '=='. Should JLS 15.21 be updated?