I like to phrase this as "style doesn't matter, consistent style does".
It's important to have consistent style, because once a programmer internalizes the local style - some types of bugs become transparent: the upon understanding what something is supposed to be doing, the style provides visual cues to the flows and a certain predictability in the code. When something is wrong it looks wrong.
Yes, indeed. I think consistency within one file is a good rule of thumb.
As an aside, are there any editors that could automagically infer formatting rules (to use for indenting, folding, etc.) upon opening a file? I'm using vim but I think I'd be willing to switch for such a feature.
It's important to have consistent style, because once a programmer internalizes the local style - some types of bugs become transparent: the upon understanding what something is supposed to be doing, the style provides visual cues to the flows and a certain predictability in the code. When something is wrong it looks wrong.