<p>The JUnit framework contains 2 <code>Assert</code> classes (in different packages, obviously) and the methods on each appear to be very similar. Can anybody explain why this is?</p>

<p>The classes I'm referring to are: <a href="http://junit.org/junit/javadoc/4.5/junit/framework/Assert.html" rel="noreferrer"><code>junit.framework.Assert</code></a> and <a href="http://junit.org/junit/javadoc/4.5/org/junit/Assert.html" rel="noreferrer"><code>org.junit.Assert</code></a>.</p>

I believe they are refactoring from
```
junit.framework
```
to
```
org.junit
```
and
```
junit.framework.Assert
```
is maintained for backwards compatibility.