title: What's the use of JSON.parse/stringify when reading an environment variable?
body: <p>In <a href="https://github.com/petehunt/webpack-howto" rel="nofollow">Pete Hunt's Webpack How To</a> this code is used:</p>
  
  <pre><code>// definePlugin takes raw strings and inserts them, so you can put strings of JS if you want.
  var definePlugin = new webpack.DefinePlugin({
    __DEV__: JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(process.env.BUILD_DEV || 'true')),
    __PRERELEASE__: JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(process.env.BUILD_PRERELEASE || 'false'))
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is <code>JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(..))</code> needed here?
  JSON stringifying/parsing is useful to clone an object to avoid mutations, but <code>process.env.BUILD_DEV</code> is (and can only be?) a string. So, why use it?</p>