[edejong]

Formatting doesn’t remove bugs, but it’ll help you detect them. Linted code helps you scan the code faster and provides valuable pattern recognition, allowing us to detect common mistakes.

There have been numerous bugs caused by incorrect code formatting, most notably an SSL security bug from 2014: https://dwheeler.com/essays/apple-goto-fail.html

Another reason for formatting is the “minimal diff” paradigm. If a formatting rule would not be followed, in the next commit hitting this code, the format would also be affected, causing a larger diff than necessary.

There are other reasons for simple format linting, but the reasons above are the most profound.

Lastly, formatting is part of a range of static code analysis tools. Generally, formatting inconsistencies are the easiest to detect and resolve, as opposed to more sophisticated tools.