As other people are saying, maybe the original author made changes to the external dependencies he pulled in. Or maybe he's just bullshitting and indeed the cod

As other people are saying, maybe the original author made changes to the external dependencies he pulled in. Or maybe he's just bullshitting and indeed the code may have never worked. Or, sure, maybe the people trying to reconstruct the application went about it entirely the wrong way, like you suggest. It's just curious that you'd instantly pick the least charitable interpretation.