title: String equals vs. byte array comparsion
body: <p>Are byte array comparisons (using a simple loop to check each index) faster than using <code>String.equals(Object)</code>? I don't think so, but some people seem to prefer byte-based operations instead of String-based operations including byte array equality-checks.</p>
  
  <p>On a side node, when does it make sense to use byte-arrays instead of Strings? Do you think for example implementing the Levenshtein-algorithm to compute a metric for the "distance" of two Strings. Do you think it speeds up the computation if it's based on bytes instead of Strings/Chars? I don't think so, but maybe.</p>
  
  <p>For instance if it's used to encode Tokens as in <a href="https://github.com/BaseXdb/basex/blob/master/src/main/java/org/basex/util/Token.java" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/BaseXdb/basex/blob/master/src/main/java/org/basex/util/Token.java</a></p>