Over the last few months, there has been a lot of talk about making Bundler faster, both by improving it directly, or by reimplementing it in another language, and while it may surprise some, that didn’t excite me much.

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RUBYLAND

A Ruby core contributor argues that Bundler's biggest problem isn't speed but missing user-control features. Two specific features are proposed: a 'force' option to override gem dependency constraints set by third-party gems, and a gem substitution mechanism (e.g., 'as:' or 'ban') to replace broken or abandoned gems with alternatives without relying on git forks. The author illustrates the pain with real examples like upgrading the openssl gem blocked by web-push's pessimistic version constraint, and the httpclient gem that broke SSL for years due to abandonment. The core argument is that Bundler currently trusts gem publishers over the actual project owner, and these features would restore control to the user.

The Missing Bundler Features