not necessarily ... official language standards bodies might make decisions much more slowly than individual hackers or groups, and even when a feature is officially baked into a new version of the syntax, it might take compilers/interpreters several more years to all implement them properly. there's definitely a need for good lightweight static checking of guidelines in IDEs

No, because guidelines can be overridden when there's a good case for doing so. Not so with syntax.

Agreed. "Style is only necessary where understanding is lacking." - Doug Hoyte

well said