It will probably be an SQL query and if software development has thought us anything is that testing is not enough. Proper testing can be very helpful and prevent many errors but it can never prevent all because you just cannot test for all circumstances. This is why backups are helpful and why backups should not be changeable. It is a reason why backups were made on magnetic tab back in the day so it wouldn’t be overridden by mistake. Backups were just as important back when programming wasn’t all about that fast iterating and push updates and fix later – or gun-slinging programming as you call it – as they are now.