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Here's my reason: if what I see on screen doesn't match the code actually being committed, that freaks me out.

Same reason I don't like using those things where <= turns into ≤ in your editor but it's written to disk as <=.




Similarly, for some languages the meaning of what is written can change based on the indentation and line breaks. Or a statement written under one formatting standard can become significantly harder to read under a different formatting standard.


There are plenty of automated formatters - clang-format, prettier, gofmt, black. You would delegate to one of them, configurable in the project/editor, and adjustable by file extension.

If the code doesn't parse, save it as-is. If it does, run the formatter with the defaults before saving. When opening, run the formatter with the user's preferences before displaying.

Gets you the benefits of a formatter, with the freedom to control your environment to your tastes. You can already pick your editor, font, and color theme. You ought to be able to pick your formatter settings too.




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