[necovek]

Consistency makes it easier to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Just like you don't want to allow both underscore_split, camelCase and TitleCase names in a single JSON object (or even different JSON objects returned by the same API), you might want more consistency overall to exactly avoid people's editors rewriting code someone else did (eg. you edit a module and your editor reformats the entire file).

[jvanderbot]

Well I just want to fix the bug or write the feature and move on, but some want other things from their code.

[Tostino]

That's the thing, without a standard formatter, a lot of IDEs use whatever their rules are. You can end up playing tennis because you just want to get that bug or feature done, you modify a couple lines of code in file X, Y, and Z, and now each of those files got reformatted by your IDE.

[jvanderbot]

Instead of agreeing apriori on a standard format for all files forever, it's better to disable formatting in your IDE (except auto-indent which should follow their format). That's what mine does anyway.

[swatcoder]

Yours is a good attitude in an org with thousands of engineers, where every change gets mediated through some process tool simply to avoid chaos. You'll be messing up the system if you step out of your lane, and you statistically don't even care about some particular project's health and future anyway.

It's not a great one in smaller teams, which benefit from everybody quietly sweeping up whatever bit of the mess they run across. Not to say that justifies the petty and sometimes passive aggressive "tennis" that can happen in that world; that's just unprofessional ego-feeding behavior.

[jvanderbot]

I mean I work on a team of (currently) three. Maybe I'm the toxic one, but I'd like to just not be persnickety.