The description in the link you provided is pretty wishy-washy:

>"smells don't always indicate a problem."

Okay, so does it smell like flowers or does it smell like shit?? It's a stupid term, and yes, it's been abused by programmers that often think it makes them seem smarter than they are.

Maybe "code stink" would be a better designation for code that's actually a problem. But even that would be stupid and I'd never use it to describe code. Putting down someone else's code as "smelly" is a great way to make a team dysfunctional. And code is often messy for plenty of good reasons (PoC code is perfectly fine if it's messy, no reason to call it "smelly"), there's no reason to anthropomorphize it and assign it a "smell". It's just a rude way to talk about code.

Your second paragraph is more reasonable.