I'm a developer working on Ground Control<http://launchpad.net/groundcontrol>, a distributed development plugin for Nautilus. Ground Control uses a new directory, $HOME/Projects, to store software projects that the user is currently working on. Would this be a suitable thing to add to /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults: PROJECTS=Projects This would be useful outside software development, since a lot of things one works on don't fit in to the existing structure.
I don't think projects is a good thing to add. Its not common enough for people to do software development that we want everyone to get a directory for it, nor is it well defined enough for general use (i.e. what type of applications would automatically put their files there).
Projects are not constricted to software development, but are used for any creative process that involved set directories of files. For instance writing manuals, doing manga comics, video projects (as opposed to XDG-Video which seems to be video consumption, and renderings). In fact any sort of organised project space. $HOME/Projects/%name%/ OR $HOME/Projects/%type%/%name%/ Are fine recommended layouts for how such a directory would work. Although I see your point that it may not be required for everyone, so perhaps making xdg-users-dir extensible so software development tools could add in a projects xdg entry without clobbering your single etc configuration file.
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