> However, a "useless" commit like that probably opens the code up to merge conflicts and other problems everyone else will get on your case about. That is a s

> However, a "useless" commit like that probably opens the code up to merge conflicts and other problems everyone else will get on your case about. That is a social problem not a technical one. You need to sell the idea to your team to try to improve the code base with every commit you do. Every time you need to make changes in some source file, see what clean up you can do to it as well. Depending on the morale/motivation/priorities of the team, this can be a harder sell than it should be. Lead by example. Show good judgement on how much to do. Small changes accumulate fast. Don't upset/hinder people by changing vast tracts of code that they need to work on. As a great VP of Engineering I once had the fortune to work with told me: Software engineering is a team sport.