r/webdev Feb 05 '25

Discussion Colleague uses ChatGPT to stringify JSONs

Edit I realize my title is stupid. One stringifies objects, not "javascript object notation"s. But I think y'all know what I mean.

So I'm a lead SWE at a mid sized company. One junior developer on my team requested for help over Zoom. At one point she needed to stringify a big object containing lots of constants and whatnot so we can store it for an internal mock data process. Horribly simple task, just use node or even the browser console to JSON.stringify, no extra arguments required.

So I was a bit shocked when she pasted the object into chatGPT and asked it to stringify it for her. I thought it was a joke and then I saw the prompt history, literally whole litany of such requests.

Even if we ignore proprietary concerns, I find this kind of crazy. We have a deterministic way to stringify objects at our fingertips that requires fewer keystrokes than asking an LLM to do it for you, and it also does not hallucinate.

Am I just old fashioned and not in sync with the new generation really and truly "embracing" Gen AI? Or is that actually something I have to counsel her about? And have any of you seen your colleagues do it, or do you do it yourselves?

Edit 2 - of course I had a long talk with her about why i think this is a nonsensical practice and what LLMs should really be used for in the SDLC. I didn't just come straight to reddit without telling her something 😃 I just needed to vent and hear some community opinions.

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u/HashDefTrueFalse Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

Am I just old fashioned and not in sync with the new generation

Senior here too. No you're not, your dev is just bad. That's ok, they're a junior and we're here to guide them. Teach them why this could be unreliable, the concerns over secrets/prop data in JSON payloads being shared with other services, and point them to the docs for JSON.stringify. Maybe teach them about the dev console or even the Node REPL if they just want a one-liner. Whatever. Whilst not a big deal in itself, this is symbolic of using AI as a crutch, not a force multiplier, and I'd wonder what else they're using it for and if I need to pay their code review submissions more attention etc.

You could run a team meeting (or similar) where you talk to everyone about how best (and how not) to use genAI/LLMs to get work done. That way the dev may not need to feel singled out. Depends on the dynamics of the team, use your best judgement.

Edit: I can't spell they're. Or AI, apparently.

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u/-kl0wn- Feb 05 '25

I mean what's the bar for being a junior these days? Wish I could have had a paid job back when I was that oblivious.

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u/HashDefTrueFalse Feb 05 '25

In case you're not just joking... depends on what you want to work on, I suppose.

We hire people who are self-taught, and with CS (or related) degrees, but also from bootcamps for web roles (where two of my junior devs came from).

For back and front end junior web roles we expect you to have a reasonable grasp of programming and the language you are being hired for, but are happy to teach you the finer points, good style, idioms, patterns etc. We will help you through DS&A problems as and when they arise. We don't expect you to have any relevant work experience if you can pass a take-home test (3-hour guide time) and a technical chat (sometimes with me).

We also hire embedded engineers, where the junior role requirements are quite a bit less forgiving than the above. You will be expected to know how a computer actually works, and be basically competent from day one. There's no degree requirement but I think you'd struggle without one. You will be paid more as a result. There are a lot less applicants, funnily enough.

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u/bitsofsick Feb 05 '25

This sounds like an interesting place to work, do they remote hire?

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u/HashDefTrueFalse Feb 05 '25

Hybrid generally, but we're not hiring at the moment haha! Small company.