I don't think it's common, but one of the projects I work on has the entire codebase and documentation already in Whitesmiths.

I don't know much about the history of how it came to be that way, but it's my understanding that pretty much everyone else who's ever worked on the project came either from big iron, or had big iron in their background. Maybe that's where it came from.

I could just be used to it now, but I find it much easier to follow what's happening in the code than Ratliff or K&R.

Horstmann and Lisp aren't bad, either. They make a lot more sense than some of the other options that litter the screen with braces in seemingly random places.

I've never worked in a Whitesmiths codebase, but I always thought it looked nice.

The one downside compared to what I mostly end up working in is that it wastes some vertical space because the opening brace is on a new line.

What is big iron?

In my experience, it generally refers to mainframes or other specialized and powerful servers.

It means mainframes.