A client’s team spent a full week adding a CSV export to their admin panel. Two engineers, clear requirements, maybe a day of actual work. The rest of the time went to understanding existing code well enough to change it safely. That’s what I call codebase drag: when the codebase makes every task take longer than it should. It doesn’t show up in any dashboard or sprint report.
If your team is only focused on tabs/spaces or soapboxing during code reviews, you have bigger issues to take care of.
Show me a place where this isn’t the case. Because I’ve never seen it not be the case in 20+ years in the field.
15+ years in engineering here. 10+ in leadership.
Code formatting hasn’t been an issue since the early '10s. Tabs or spaces? Who cares. Your editor can make it look like whatever you want and it won’t effect the code.
As for other asshole-ish behavior or gatekeeping, I open it up to a vote. Let the team determine best practices. Don’t like what your team decides? Find another team to shitlord over.