Gem Versioning and Bundler: Doing it Right
http://yehudakatz.com/2011/05/30/gem-versioning-and-bundler-doing-it-right/-- Shared with Google Share Button
This article talks about best practices for using Bundler and Gemfile.lock.
I take an even more conservative approach than this and use explicit versioning in my Gemfile, but the discussion of the principles and rationale is enlightening here.
I also can't use the "always run bundle exec" advice for my server because the service application I use can only kill the executable when the service stops if the executable is what was directly called when starting the service. Unfortunately, "bundle exec" introduces another executable between the service manager and the actual server executable, which means that it breaks the service stop function.