Quoting Steve Litt (slitt@???):

> Substitute the word "needlessly complex" for "overengineered" and I
> don't like it either. But 1), I don't think you'd get anywhere near
> universal agreement that by_path, by_id, etc is either overengineered
> or needlessly complex, [...]

One interesting fact about applying _local policy_ to system
administration is that universal agreement (i.e., vetted by others
elsewhere) is neither required nor useful.

> and 2) ANYBODY can make a typo, completely
> unrelated to "not bothering to look at dmesg | tail".

That's a risk with almost _any_ invocation using root authority of
inherently dangerous tools like /bin/dd . The earliest and most
important lesson for all junior sysadmins is 'If you break it, you buy
it.'

> I think a more relevant constructive criticism would have been "where
> were the backups?".

And 'Be incredibly sure of your syntax before running /bin/dd as root.'