Opening the Coding Style Can of Worms

I find it troubling when different portions of code from the same project use different indentation and bracing styles. In my opinion, it's much easier to read and maintain code that's uniform in style. However, you won't find me arguing that any one style is objectively better than any other. Although I have my own preferences, I've found that my brain and fingers are willing to adapt to any style over time. All that they ask in return is that I try to stick with a single style while working on a single problem.

Unfortunately, our team doesn't have formal coding conventions and our code base has evolved a fair amount of inconsistency over time. I recently asked the team if we could settle on a standard indentation and bracing scheme in the future, but I now regret that I brought it up...

It's very hard to extract the benefit of reaching a consensus on this issue without wasting an inordinate number of cycles arguing about it. At the end of the day, I think I'd rather not discuss it anymore.

I'm reminded of Ken Arnold's article on the subject. Although his proposal is quite radical, it addresses all of my concerns. If we adopted his approach, we'd have 100% consistent code without spending any time arguing about it!