English Explanatory Dictionary

code smell

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Anything in a program's source code that suggests the presence of a design problem.

Word forms

code smell code smells

Etymology

Analogous to a bad smell indicating e.g. rotten food. Apparently coined by American software engineer Kent Beck, in the late 1990s. Popularized via the book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, co-authored by Beck.

Related words

clean code refactoring
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