Context: Code and design smells, such as the coupling smells examined in this article, are widely studied. Existing empirical studies reveal gaps between the scientific theory and practice, not yet explained by the scientific literature. Only basic coupling smell detection approaches and metrics seem to have been transferred to practice so far. Objective: This article aims to study the current practitioner’s understanding of coupling smells. Method: Based on grey literature sources containing practitioner views on coupling smells, we performed a Grounded Theory (GT) study. We used UML-based modeling to precisely encode our findings and performed a rigorous analysis of our codes and models. Results: Our results are defining factors of coupling smells, as well as smell impacts, trade-offs, relationships to other smells, relationships to practices and patterns, and fix options as perceived by practitioners. We further identified gaps in the understanding of coupling smells between science and practice, and derived opportunities and challenges for future scientific work. Conclusions: Five lessons are presented as opportunities and challenges for future research. Our results can help scientists to get a better understanding of practitioner concerns, and practitioners to get an overview of the current perception of other practitioners on coupling smells.

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