[roykanesmith37]

At my last job we had a mono-repo with the .idea directory (for IntelliJ) commited. For Java projects IntelliJ needs to sometimes be directed to understand what folders are “resources” to allow better autocompletion and highlighting.

For example specifying custom java faces components directory that will be used once the application is packaged into a war file, so IntelliJ knows they are accessible from JSP html files, and will autocomplete and show you what attributes you can modify on the component.

[shagie]

I had a dev check in their .idea directory and all the files for a project. This resulted in them checking in the file that had windows and cursor positions checked in too. Each time you went to switch to a different branch, you got the workspace configuration of the last person to commit that file.

Another spot of problems was the plugin specific files (that inevitably also got checked in). When someone checked them in again and you hadn't updated this particular plugin, the newer file format caused it to crash. Not a problem for the dev who checked it in, but a problem for everyone else.

I am a strong proponent now of not checking in files that are IDE specific unless the developers are all completely aware of what files do what and the associated churn that a file may have through normal use.

Having maven and editorconfig instruct IntelliJ on how to make a workspace consistent results in less config file churn and avoids people accidentally checking in the compiler settings on their computer, database configurations (with passwords), run configurations (with passwords) and similar.

Checking in IDE files can be done, just that the developers all need to be diligent in checking what they check in. I've rarely been in an environment where that is the case for everyone.