[cheerlessbog]

It's less of a distinction then it used to be, but IDE's tend to be workspace/project first, and editors tend to be folder/file first.

You would typically point an IDE at a metafile that described the source files, build settings and so forth and it would discover the editable files. All this in a semi opaque manner, bootstrapped by some menus or templates. In contrast in an editor, you might generate the metafile only when your project becomes too big for the defaults to be sufficient.

You're right that the distinction is much more blurred now. For example you can do a lot in Visual Studio now without using a "project" file.