It's literally explained in the first line on the page, where he says he wrote it "in order to win the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) in 2002."

It's literally explained in the first line on the page, where he says he wrote it "in order to win the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) in 2002." So it's not that it wouldn't work, but it obviously wouldn't have worked for that contest.