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If your app doesn't need the gems in a certain group, why can't you just let bundler install them with a regular bundle install, and then simply not use them? Is it just a cleanliness issue - i.e. not installing extra things you don't need - or can it break something?

Tyler
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1 Answers1

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It does seem like a cleanliness issue only, but it is a performance issue, and potentially an overhead issue, as I will explain:

  • Cleanliness you covered, less gems in the filesystem. Less network traffic usage ( which might be costly for some, who knows ).

  • Performance involves reducing the time it takes to bundle and deploy your application. Saving a few milliseconds or seconds can sometimes matter in a production environment.

  • Overhead is the least likely reason. Bundler will only require gems from the :default group automatically, unless you specify other groups in your Bundler.require statement.

Performance more than Cleanliness or Overhead seems to be the best reason for --without

Using the --without parameter is also "remembered" by Bundler, so be mindful of that. It's designed to be "set and forget" on the destination environment.

Reference: http://bundler.io/v1.9/groups.html

digitalextremist
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