Comment by dust-jacket

I really like the street sign analogy.

But in my case it was the other way around. I work in a Kowloon Walled City of code: dozens of intersecting communities with thousands of informally organized but largely content contributors. It looks like chaos, but it works ok.

Code formatting really did feel like a new neighbor declaring "you know what this place needs, better-marked bus lanes!" as though that would help them see the sky from the bottom of an ally or fix the underlying sanitation issues. As you might imagine, the efforts didn't get far and mostly annoyed people.

But as the GP said, it all depends on the culture. If you pick up and move to Singapore you'd damn well better keep your car washed and your code style black.