Another example: IDE configuration settings. Projects sometimes check in an IDE formatting file settings to ensure that all developers use the same formatting.

Another example: IDE configuration settings. Projects sometimes check in an IDE formatting file settings to ensure that all developers use the same formatting. There are a couple of times where I wanted to add my own little formatting detail (which didn't conflict with the project's) but couldn't because doing so would mark that file modified and force me to remember to undo my changes before each push. With the hack from the article, I have now a working solution out of this.