> the error from the C compiler is something that a competent programmer would be able to interpret,

contrary to the post, this was almost certainly not an issue of compilers throwing errors.

Reduced familarity with C could have played a role, but given the number of C experts that looked at this knowing there was an error and still misidentified the cause I don't think we need to reach for that powerful an explanation.

Confusion of definedness vs value check would make for a fine underhanded C entry. The flaw was not particularly clear from the source... and most common QA procedures could not distinguish a PRNG from TRNG once the error happened.