Realizing the actual importance of code formatting

While code formatting is definitely part of programming, and can definitely affect how maintainable your code is; in most cases, the actual formatting of code matters far less than you would initially expect. Outside of egregious cases, you'll probably be able to read two different pieces of code formatted differently, and determine that they accomplish the same thing. On the flip side, there's definitely code that is difficult to understand regardless of how it is formatted.

Focus on the understandability of your code, not the formatting of your code. The main time you should worry about your code formatting is when it negatively impacts the understandability of your code. The other time is when you are formatting for artistic effect:

  def       fed
  ( p       p )
  p?a       a?p...