Our process for patching external projects is pretty straightforward (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopensource.google.com%2Fdocs%2Fpatching%2F). Tell your buddies to contact me (they can look me up in our internal directory) and I can try to help address their concerns. -Will Norris

> I've always found it intriguing that a programmer who could
> master several arcane computer languages (especially since
> computers are notably intolerant of errors), could fail so utterly
> to master his own native human language.

I believe it is precisely the fact that spoken or written languages ARE tolerant of errors that prevents people from mastering them. I'm reminded of an email that's floated around for a long time referring to some university study where a paragraph of text was still legible even though every single word was egregiously mispelled. It was close, and therefore "close enough" to effectively communicate a message.

You can see this same thing when comparing programming languages -- many of the more strict ones force you to write clearer and better code, while more lax languages allow you to write really bad code and get away it. (Of course, there are always exceptions to that)

Well, then they wouldn't be the best applicants then, would they? Technically they may be but there's more to many positions in a company than just technical knowledge of systems and procedures.

Thanks. It's pointless now, however, since the Real Thing is back up (woo hoo! and thank (insert religious entity here) and scoop).