[mullsork]

I like that definition: the code might be fine as far as code itself goes, but it's still slowing you down as you iterate on the product. Decisions that were somewhat right at the time have slowly started go wrong as new ideas, requirements, and knowledge arrives.

On backends that comprise a database and an API layer on top I find that the sweet spot of speed + iterability can be found by deconstructing the product into its atomic parts. This boils down to modelling the database so that is as close to "reality" (as seen from a business/legal perspective rather than the product's perspective.) as is comfortable.

Reality is somewhat immutable (compared to a product.) Deconstructing (not just necessarily normalize) the API entities into small parts that reflect some "real world idea." The product is an abstraction of "reality" and that abstraction may change, but the underlying parts do not.

Of course once performance comes into account things may be different, but speed is rarely an issue when we start.