Do bad smells indicate "trouble" in code?

Abstract

In 1999 Fowler et al. identified 22 Bad Smells in code to direct the effective refactoring. These are increasingly being used by software engineers. However, the empirical basis of using Bad Smells to direct refactoring and to address 'trouble' in code is not clear. Our project aims to empirically investigate the impact of Bad Smells on software in terms of their relationship to faults.