title: Is there a difference between folder/ and folder/*
body: <p>Now I did try to search for this, but searching for punctuation is often difficult. But equally I feel sure this would have been answered before so please point out any duplicate answers to this already if there are!</p>
  
  <p>My quetsion is in a <code>.gitignore</code> file is there any difference between:</p>
  
  <p><strong>.gitignore file 1:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>ignore_this_folder/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>.gitignore file 2:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>ignore_this_folder/*
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I think both will ignore anything within the folder <code>ignore_this_folder</code>. Is there a "best practise"? is the <code>*</code> useless in this case? or is there some subtle difference?</p>