Question

I’m developing a web app.
If I include a jQuery plugin (or the jQuery file itself), this has to be put under my static directory, which is under SCM, to be served correctly.

Should I gitignore it, or add it, even if I don’t plan on modifying anything from it?
And what about binary files (graphic resources) that might come with it?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Answer 1

I generally add external resources to my project directly. Doing so facilitates deployment and ensures that if someone changes the version of this file in your project, you have a clear audit history of what happened in case it causes issues in the code that you’ve written. Developers should know not to modify these external resources.

You could use something like git submodules, I suppose, but I haven’t felt that this is worth the hassle in the past.

Binary files from external sources can be checked in to the project as well, although if they’re extremely large you may want to consider a different approach.