Comparing dates in Javascript

The Date object in Javascript is not a primitive, it is a full fledged object, with a constructor and various instances, with methods that mutate their values. That means that the meaning of equality between two dates is ambiguous: what does it mean that date1 equals date2? That they are the same object or that they point to the same instance in time? In Javascript, it means they are the same object. Let me give you some code:

var date1=new Date();
var date2=new Date(date1.getTime()); // now date2 points to the same moment in time as date1
console.log(date1==date2) // outputs "false"
date1=date2;
console.log(date1==date2) // outputs "true", date1 and date2 are pointing to the same object

So, how can we compare two dates? First thought it to turn them into numeric values (how many milliseconds from the beginning of 1970) and compare them. Which works, but looks ugly. Instead of using date1.getTime() == date2.getTime() one might use the fact that the valueOf function of the Date object also returns the same numeric value as getTime and turn the comparison into a substraction instead. To compare the two dates, just check if date2 - date1 == 0.