unless its a perfect shining jewel - every piece of existing code constrains future development, until progress asymptotically approaches zero and development cost asymptotically approaches infinity
> every piece of existing code constrains future development
If that were literally true, then every new development would rationally necessitate a total rewrite of the codebase.
You might have meant that parts of the existing codebase would need to be changed to adapt to the new development, but as long as you've made a rational decision to keep using parts of the existing codebase, it must have been a net positive otherwise you'd just throw it all away.
