Suggestion: Add .gitignore file to repo

[ivalaginja]

Result of review in openjournals/joss-reviews#7917.

When I install your package locally from source, I get all the build files dumped inside the repo (which is normal). Since these are local files that shouldn't be committed and pushed, I recommend including a .gitignore file in the top level of the repo. You can fill it with:

• a filter for local build files (i.e., *.egg-info/)
• a filter for pycache files (i.e., .pyc)
• file extensions for the most common code editors (e.g., .iml for PyCharm, .vs for VSCode)
• randomly created hidden files based on the OS (e.g., .DS_Store for MacOS)

And example for a very simple .gitignore file is:

*.pyc
*.iml
*.egg-info/
.ipynb_checkpoints/
.idea/
.vs
.DS_Store

In this way they don't pollute your git working tree when working with a clone of the repo directly. This is handy both for developers (you) and your users.

[xiaziyna]

Thanks for the suggestion - I have added this and removed the rogue '.pyc' files. This seems like a nicer way to do things than relying tracking by eye!

• I believe these are all the rogue build files but please let me know if you saw any others.

[ivalaginja]

It is indeed, git can feel like true magic sometimes! 🙃