Re:TLA+
by grayhatter on Monday March 08, 2021 @04:13PM
(#26391634)
I understand the point of the analogy, my question was more why is such a bad one so popular. something something makes my hair stand up, as alternative that's actually good; used to mean the feeling of anxiety. No one mentions smells when they're talking about good code. Similar to normal american english conversations, if someone mentions a smell unprovoked, it's normally a disgusting smell. So when used against code, it's implying the code is repulsive. Which to me at least feels super insulting to respond to code (text on a screen) with such a vicseral response, of distrust/dislike.
I don't think everyone, let alone most people, makes the leap from "smell" to "repulsive". "My fridge smells funny" is not the same as "My fridge smells so bad it makes me want to puke". The first is a cause for investigation, the second is a cause for real concern.
Most code "smells" are in the former category, they are not describing the code as "repulsive" but "off". If you're making that leap then you're going to need to supply (or find) another term for what is described, for now over 20 years, as a code smell. Since most people don't have the same visceral reaction you do, they won't care.
It's really only douchy or elitist if it's strictly used in an insulting or disparaging way. Most of the time when people talk about code smells it's meant to indicate, just like with real-world odd, bad, or unexpected smells: Something doesn't seem right. I could be wrong, but it warrants investigation.
Using the examples above, deep nesting and large numbers of parameters are indications of a potential problem, but are not necessarily problems. It could be that a refactoring is in order, but it may also be that everything is fine (just not pretty).