I used to believe this but then I found myself spending way more time on clean single-purpose commits than I saved looking at a clean commit log. Especially if

I used to believe this but then I found myself spending way more time on clean single-purpose commits than I saved looking at a clean commit log. Especially if the cleanup touches the same code you are semantically modifying you are basically forced into a bad dilemma of doing them in parallel (leading to a merge conflict with yourself yuck), or doing them in series which leads to the question of whether you should twiddle your thumbs while waiting for the first commit to get through review or whether you should do something else in the meantime risking forgetting the other commit. That's why I don't think it's completely clear cut.