It can matter.

For example, let us assume a system with a few dozen parts, and thus a
few dozen dependencies.  If you deliver a project file for each part
with that part's dependencies, then they can look at it with just a few
minutes fiddling.  Without that, they get to figure out your deliverable
documentation, and that can take a while.  Probably it is enough to
specify that "JBuilder/IDEA/Eclipse-compatible project files will be
delivered with the source code", and then let the developers use
whatever suits their fancy.

A real life parable:

One of my clients has a heterogenous environment with a dozen developers
using four different IDEs.  JBuilder and CodeWarrior differ greatly in
how they want code to be laid out, and thus two developers were at each
other's throats regularly.

We agreed on a code re-organization that was compatible with both
systems, and then I wrote an ANT-based nightly build system that
understood the interproject dependencies.  This made sure that nobody
checked in something that broke the build without us knowing about it.

For the two IDEs I use regularly, I also generated projects from that
dependency information.  This made it really easy for me to do
maintainence on any piece of the system - I could open up Eclipse or
IDEA and immediately see what was going on.

Scott
scott@alodar.com
Java, Cocoa, WebObjects and Database consulting