From the Eclipse Documentation: "Make sure that the .project and .classpath files are under version control. These files must be stored in the repository so that other users checking out the projects for the first time will get the correct type of project and will get the correct Java build path." - http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_set_up_a_Java_project_to_share_in_a_repository%3F

Scala.gitignore currently has more entries for Eclipse than Eclipse.gitignore
itself. Copy missing entries here.

Add exclusion for Scala IDE specific .cache-main files.

Code Recommenders introduced in Eclipse Luna (4.5) creates a .recommenders directory at the root of the workspace, like .metadata

Just added some comments. Some of us don't need some of the lines in the file.

Remove .gradle because it is not eclipse specific and already added in Gradle.gitignore.

Add ignore for STS's .springBeans file

The Tern plugin generate a '.tern-project' file in the project directory. (https://github.com/angelozerr/tern.java/wiki/Tern-Eclipse-IDE)

template

which is ".target" directory.

As is clearly stated in the [eclipse documentation](http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_set_up_a_Java_project_to_share_in_a_repository%3F).  
This gitignore has lead to much confusion in SO - please ammend

I would guess the same is true for .pydevproject and .cproject but can't
be sure/do not have any references on those

Also .launch configurations are generally meant to be versioned when
saved under project location. See for instance :
http://stackoverflow.com/a/337317/281545

This addresses #229

*** .externalToolBuilders/
This directory stores project-specific launch configurations for external tool builders, such as ant tasks that have to be executed to fulfill the build lifecycle

*** *.launch
It is possible to store "eclipse launch configurations" in external files. These (XML-)files may be stored anywhere within your projects and will be discovered by Eclipse automagically.

This is common amongst ruby projects in eclipse.