It turns out it can be pretty profitable to break with the machine model of the underlying data and instead present things the way your users want to see them,

It turns out it can be pretty profitable to break with the machine model of the underlying data and instead present things the way your users want to see them, even if it makes the code necessary look complicated and gross. It certainly can, though I think you’re still figuring out a data model first on those projects. It’s just that you’re starting with how the information is organised and manipulated from the user’s point of view, then figuring out an internal representation to support it afterwards, rather than the other way around.