Why is the Bigdecimal(double d) construction still around?

I've noticed substantial pain over this constructor (even here on Stack Overflow). People use it even though the documentation clearly states: The results of this constructor can be somewhat unpredictable http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html#BigDecimal(double) I've even seen a JSR-13 being APPROVED with a recommendation stating: Existing specifications that might be deprecated: We propose deprecating the BigDecimal(double) constructor, which currently gives results that are different to the Double.toString() method. Despite all this, the constructor has not yet been deprecated. I'd love to hear any views on this.