I'm coming across stuff on the emacs wiki like Project Buffer Mode and SLN Mode

Are these old packages like everything else in Linux; not relevant or usable any more? I'm not sure if "just try them" is the right idea here, or even how to go about doing that (yet). Do you have any other suggestions or options? I'm trying to see the project view of the open source game Cataclysm DDA. They seem to be using a Windows system for development now and I'm seeing several little elements that are not getting compiled the same between their builds and what make produces with GCC. Perhaps the stuff in the project files would reveal more detail. (learning, but this is over my head and outside of my comfort zone)