Android (5.0.1) Chrome is deleting javascript whitespace and comments, is there a way to stop this?

In addition to making debugging almost impossible, this new behavior is breaking my website where I use the heredoc javascript technique, (Javascript heredoc) which depends on using comments.

I'm not sure if I inadvertably turned this on, and this is a rare occurrence, or if this is a new Android feature. I'm concerned because I use the heredoc javascript technique on a number of different sites, and this behavior will break these sites.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Is there a workaround where the server can stop this?

Is there an alternative to the heredoc javascript technique?