title: What's the best way to manipulate Dates and Timestamps in Java?
body: <p>Every time I need to work with date and/or timstamps in Java I always feel like I'm doing something wrong and spend endless hours trying to find a better way of working with the APIs without having to code my own Date and Time utility classes.  Here's a couple of annoying things I just ran into:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>0-based months.  I realize that best practice is to use Calendar.SEPTEMBER instead of 8, but it's annoying that 8 represents September and not August.</p></li>
  <li><p>Getting a date without a timestamp.  I always need the utility that Zeros out the timestamp portion of the date.</p></li>
  <li><p>I know there's other issues I've had in the past, but can't recall.  Feel free to add more in your responses.</p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>So, my question is ... What third party APIs do you use to simplify Java's usage of Date and Time manipulation, if any?  Any thoughts on using <a href="http://www.joda.org/joda-time/" rel="noreferrer">Joda</a>?  Anyone looked closer at JSR-310 Date and Time API? </p>