fs.exists, fs.existsSync - why are they deprecated?

Question

I noticed that the official node documentation says something startling about fs.exists:

\"fs.exists() is an anachronism and exists only

Answer 1

existsSync's implementation is like this (v0.10.25):

function (path) {
  try {
    nullCheck(path);
    binding.stat(pathModule._makeLong(path));
    return true;
  } catch (e) {
    return false;
  }
}

so if you write program like if(fs.existsSync(thepath)){}, it is better to change it to if(fs.statSync(thepath)){}.