In the original code, there was a coercion .to_s ... see line 143 from the diff ^^. Are we certain removing this coercion won't break something? You would also need a coercion in line 210 to apply the same comparison. I'm not saying I know the answer to this, its just that it was done here once during 2be70591, by @nlew and it might have been for a good reason.