Comment by ulbu
In the domain and history that shells inhabit, the design should not prioritize arithmetic operations over indirection. '>>' is a biiig footgun. Elevation of a symbol to non-destructive operation into a destructive one is obviously a wrong choice. I wonder if it was a deliberate decision.
edit: just leave '>>' as append and make '>>>' destructive instead.
I was thinking the same.
They should at least make it an option to prompt the user when interactively redirecting to an already existing file. ZSH has this, except for the prompt (you'll need to run the command again using `>!`)