[Izkata]

> and they asked whether that's a codebase smell...

Something that's been an issue with our most junior dev, he's heard a lot of terminology but never really learned what some of those terms mean, so he'll use them in ways that don't really make sense. Your example here is just the kind of thing I'd expect from him, if he's heard the phrase "code smell" but assumed something incorrect about what it meant and never actually looked up what it means.

It is possible your co-worker was asking you this the other way around - that they'd just learned the term and were trying to understand it rather than apply it.