For Java? No equivalent. Honestly it’s kinda embarrassing how good Intellij was when I used it, at least compared to the alternatives. For other languages, depends on how much work you’re able to accept. Vim can be a large upfront cost in work, but a tailor fit result may be worth it. Them again, I will admit that I prefer the IDE (where applicable) stay minimal.

I have no formal basis for this, but I imagine that it has to do with kerning, the way the letters are shaped, and us just being used to reading them in a specific format. I suspect that the format is treated as ‘aesthetic’ to our brains, and breaking it annoys some small part of our brains.

“The experiment is the experiment”.