Areas of an artifact that are off limits for one reason or another.
Reasons include:
- nobody fully understands the artifact (e.g., the artifact was acquired externally, or the original developers have left the scene)
- The artifact has so many tendrils that any change risks collateral damage
- The original author is still around, and for various reasons others don't dare touch the artifact (e.g., the original developer is vengefully protective)
- The culture confers ownership to the last person to touch an artifact (AKA StickyFingers), and nobody wants that particular ownership
A classic example of a NoGoArea is the ParagraphEditor in SmalltalkEighty. At the time it was written, it broke new ground in multi-font text editing. Ten years later it was a wheezing pile.
I see here a problem in people/culture. Team does not have enough courage to change annoying things; so, the team will most likely fail in other areas too.
See also LegacyCode, OldCodeRusts, LavaFlow