The version that was live on GitHub the day they published their blog post was missing compilation instructions, didn't cleanly compile and didn't pass GitHub Actions CI.

The project itself did compile most of the time it was being developed - the coding agents had been compiling it the whole time they were running on it.

Shortly after the blog post they updated the GitHub repo with compilation instructions and it worked. I took this screenshot with it: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/cursor-simonwil...

The "it didn't even compile" criticism is valid in pointing out that they messed up the initial release, but if you think "it never compiled" you have an incorrect mental model.

I think it was mostly a joke about IE being horrible.