Do you put your development/runtime tools in the repository?

Question

Putting development tools (compilers, IDEs, editors, ...) and runtime environments (jre, .net framework, interpreters, ...) under the version control has a couple of nice reasons. First, you can easily compile/run your program just by checking out your repository. You don't have to have anything else. Second, the triple is surely version compatible as you once tested it. However, it has its own drawbacks. The main one is the big volume of large binary files that must be put under version control system. That may cause the VCS slower and the backup process harder. What's your idea?

Answer 1

Tools and dependencies actually used to compile and build the project, absolutely - it is very useful if you ever have to debug an issue or develop a fix for an older version and you've moved on to newer versions that aren't quite compatible with the old ones.

IDE's & editors no - ideally you're project should be buildable from a script so these would not be necessary. The generated output should still be the same regardless of what you used to edit the source.

Answer 2

I include a text (and thus easily diff-able) file in every project root called "How-to-get-this-project-running" that includes any and all things necessary, including the correct .net version and service packs.