Should IDE project files be put under source control?

Question

This may boil down to opinion: I am wondering if project files (the files generated and used by the IDE and not the compiler) should be included in source control repositories. Are there certain cases where they should and shouldn't?

Edit: I should mention that the reason I am asking is because I'm looking at some lists of files to be ignored by git when using Visual Studio -- some of these lists have the project files and some don't.

Answer 1

One simple question: Do you need them to build your code? If not, then they're artefacts, not source files, and have no place being in the source control system.

Things like your editor color preferences or keybindings are not part of the build system. Compiler flags and so on are.

We store everything that's needed to build, down to the operating system install disks and required configuration. Anal-retentive doesn't even come close to describing us :-) If we could store the hardware, we would (we have to make do with storing a document detailing the hardware specs).

We also occasionally test our capability to build the development environment from scratch using only what's stored in the repositories. Failure there means that we;re not covered in terms of disaster recovery.

Answer 2

It is easier and logical to me to include project files in the repositories, since they are part of the project itself. Project changes, project files too.

Whenever you have to revert the whole project to the previous state or invite someone to check in to work on the project, it is much more convenient to have every file. Not just source code.

By the way, most IDEs include the project files in repositories, and it will be too painful to exclude them and still keep the possibility to check in and check out from IDE itself.