I'd never suspect this to be intentional if I'd spot it in a patch, even given the consequences in this particular case. I have written and committed things into code instead of writing it into some other window several times. Without a linter I probably wouldn't spot an extra dot when reviewing my own change before sending it out.

Not me. Maybe someone is using an editor with a . key mapped to something. It's in a pretty convenient place.

:wq!

I love this type of hindsight to 20-10 comment. "If I saw...". That is a BIG if. Plenty of smart people on that mailing also missed it. I missed it myself when I opened the HN lead link. Very subtle.

I dont use mailing lists for patches, I use gerrit that would put a great big highlight over that character

I distinctly remember having to remove such a superfluous . that I accidentally added into a file on multiple occasions.

If you are using vi and your left shift key is dodgy, that can easily happen by accident.

Double spacebar gives you period in some contexts on Mac.