avoiding committing personal cruft

I couldn't think of a better subject, so bear with me while I explain.

Let's say I am contributing to some upstream project, and I am hacking on it inside my local repo's master branch. Let's also say that I enjoy using my favourite IDE which creates its own project files and whatnot, and I don't want to commit that stuff with the rest of the project code. It has no place being accidentally pushed/pulled upstream. It's my personal cruft, hence the subject line.

However, I *do* want to version control my personal cruft, and I can do that on a separate branch. But I want the content of that other branch to exist in the working tree alongside my checkout of master.

My current solution basically involves versioning the IDE files on another branch (named ide-branch), and using 'git checkout ide-branch .' to overlay the files on top of the currently checked-out branch (master).

The ide-branch has nothing in it except the cruft from the IDE and the paths leading up to that cruft. The master branch has a .gitignore that ignores the IDE files so I won't end up polluting master by accident.

It's a manageable solution for now. I tend to think of it conceptually as 'layering' two branches: I want the content of both present in the working tree.

I was just wondering if anyone else has tried something similar.

 James.