And symbols are as fast as chars:
julia> @btime isequal(:a,:a);
1.689 ns (0 allocations: 0 bytes)
julia> @btime isequal('k', 'c');
1.688 ns (0 allocations: 0 bytes)
julia> @btime isequal("k", "v");
5.033 ns (0 allocations: 0 bytes)