[pawn]

Oh wow. A few names immediately came to mind as I read this.

I remember the first time I encountered this, and thinking the guy had to be on crack.

His quote: "A changed comment in code could possibly cause a problem, if the file were to become corrupted as its uploaded"

[jl6]

Maybe I'm just That Guy, and maybe your example is from a non-critical system, but if you are dealing with a highly available mission critical system, any change carries a risk, even the act of deployment.

The tension probably arises from disagreement over what is critical.