> Software is like writing. It can’t help but express how the author thinks about their code. These tools try to iron that personality out - and for what reason?

A single-author novel can have personality. A 100-author 30-volume encyclopedia, less so. Whenever I set up a new single-author codebase, I set up as little automatic code formatting as I please. For collaborating with other developers, I will enforce as much as possible as early as possible.