&gt; So why not remove all blank lines too. They&#x27;re less important for reducing issues that single line&#x2F;braceless flow control blocks can cause.<p>By and large I do. But I don&#x27;t think what you say is actually true. Given the choice between:<p><pre><code>    stepa1
    if(something)
      stepa2
    stepa3

    stepb1
    stepb2
    stepb3
</code></pre>
and<p><pre><code>    stepa1
    if(something) {
      stepa2
    }
    stepa3
    stepb1
    stepb2
    stepb3
</code></pre>
(same number of lines), I think the former is often more readable - stepa2 is visually separated in either case.