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The concept of “smells” literally smells to some people, like me. I can’t be the only one who is offended.

Apart from the psychosomatics of it, it’s unnecessary and childish and dishonest.

It asserts a physical repugnance when the truth is the author simply dislikes something.

Mention smell, and I have a much harder time taking you seriously.

It’s just an abstraction for the idea of “this pattern tends to signal a problem”. The same way humans have learned that certain smells signal spoiled meat or rotten eggs. Sometimes those smells can safely be ignored, like when eating Limburger cheese or durian fruit.

Code smells themselves aren’t problems, they’re just useful track marks that might indicate a problem is lurking nearby. Worth looking into and making the decision yourself.

Poor patterns elicit physical repugnance in some individuals, so the term is only more correct in those cases.

The term “smell” over something more concrete like “rotten” is quite perfect as what smells for me might not smell for you; whereas if something is rotten there’s little dispute.

Additionally, a code smell can describe code that feels wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Similar to catching a whiff of a new smell when out. You can’t quite discern where it came from, but it’s there.

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