This is why we get very poor developers. The software engineers are full-time Java developers, and always part time JavaScript developers. Instead of hiring for JavaScript experts, they prefer to get a bad version of "full stack". The "==" causes the types to be converter to see if they are equal. Depending on how many times the task is executed this can be rigorous and unnecessary. The "===" is a direct comparison and assumes that both items are the same type and checks to see if they are equal. No conversion is formed so it is a lot faster. If you know you are comparing two numbers you would use (5 === 5) would be true. If you don't know what you're getting back you could use (5 == "five") which will force a conversion.