Code smell is a term used to refer to a piece of code that lacks structural quality; however, the code may be functionally correct. Code smells violate SOLID design principles, hence they must be taken seriously, as the code that is not well written leads to heavy maintenance cost in the long run. However, code smells can be refactored into clean code.
As an independent software consultant, I have had a lot of opportunities to interact and learn from great developers, architects, QA folks, system administrators, CTOs and CEOs, entrepreneurs, and so on. Whenever our discussions crossed the billion dollar question, "What is clean code or good code?", I more or less got one common response globally, "Good code will be well commented." While this is partially correct, certainly that's where the problem starts. Ideally, clean code should be self-explanatory, without any need for comments. However, there are some occasions where comments improve the overall readability and...