(Hey, we've had this discussion at least once before.)

Quoting Ralph Ronnquist via Dng (dng@???):

> The terms "obsolete" and "deprecated" are badly chosen, since the
> programs ifconfig and iwconfig are neither. You may well have your
> reasons to like other programs to achieve the functions offered by
> ifconfig and iwconfig, but that does not make ifconfig and iwconfig be
> neither obsolete nor deprecated.

net-tools, source of ifconfig, arp, rarp, netstat, route, hostname,
ethers, ipmaddr, iptunnel, mii-tool, nameif, plipconfig, and slattach,
last had a release on 2011-10-14.
(https://sourceforge.net/projects/net-tools/files/)

The perception that it's deprecated is, at minimum, quite widely held, e.g.,
https://www.archlinux.org/news/deprecation-of-net-tools/ .
Ditto obsolete: https://lwn.net/Articles/710533/

A significant number of newer (but getting old!) kernel features are
inaccessible from the net-tools suie. Long ago, I had a list of those,
but would have to hunt to re-find it. The list included source-based
routing, QoS, VLAN, bonding, bridges.

iwconfig is a slightly different case, being not from net-tools but
rather Jean Tourrilhes's Wireless Tools for Linus, a project sponsored
at the time by HP. That codebase was last released in _2007_, and is
considered deprecated by the kernel coders:
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/documentation/iw/replace-iwconfig

As actress Simone Signoret said as the title to her 1978 memoir, 'La
nostalgie n'est plus ce qu'elle était.' (Nostalgia isn't what it used
to be.) Ms. Signoret said she picked up and translated said aphorism from
an inspired bit of NYC graffiti.

-- 
Cheers,            You must rise or sink / You must conquer or win, 
Rick Moen          Or serve and lose. / Suffer or triumph, / Be anvil or hammer.
rick@??? 
McQ! (4x80)        -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gesellige Lieder, Ein Anderes