wooledg:~$ prename Deprecated program in use: rename as shipped with the Debian perl package will be removed after the release of stretch. Please install the separate 'rename' package which will provide the same command. Usage: rename [-v] [-n] [-f] perlexpr [filenames]
Hmm, OK, let's do what the warning says, and install the rename package: wooledg:~$ sudo apt-get install rename [sudo] password for wooledg: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done rename is already the newest version (0.20-4). 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Hey, what gives? You told me to install 'rename' and it's already installed! Now, I don't care if it's part of the 'perl' package or part of the 'rename' package, as long as it's still installed by default (and this seems good -- Priority: standard), and still named 'prename'. What I DO NOT WANT is for the name 'prename' to go away. Because then all the programs that call prename will fail. What I DO NOT WANT is for someone in Debian to tell me that I should be calling 'rename' instead, because this is dangerous. There is a different program named 'rename' on Red Hat systems, and it has incompatible syntax and behavior. Calling 'prename' in a shell script is safe, because if you run it on a Red Hat system, you get a nice friendly error message telling you that prename isn't found, instead of some random behavior. Calling 'rename' in a shell script is a recipe for disaster. You can't know what will happen. I figured I'd better speak up now, before we have another mailx -> s-nail disaster at buster's release. Names of things are important. You can't just go changing them on a whim.
