Why were most java.util.Date methods deprecated?

Question

When you look at the javadoc of the java.util.Date class, most of the methods are deprecated. Why was this done?

Answer 1

They're deprecated because Date was written as fast as possible back in the day when they wanted to rush the JDK out the door.

It turns out the Dates and Calendars are Hard. So, they created the Calendar class, which much more thought, in order to handle the Hard Parts of working with calendars.

They deprecated the Date methods and delegated to Calendar because they didn't want to change the behavior of the existing Date methods, and possibly break existing applications.