title: Relationships between Rubygems, Bundler, and RVM
body: <p>Following current best practices, what is the proper role for each of these?</p>
  
  <p>Based on my limited understanding of Bundler and RVM, it seems that they--like Rubygems--have their own install locations for gems. Plus, for each one, there's the option of installing to system paths using <code>sudo</code> or to your home directory. And then there's the ability to vendor gems with Bundler (where applicable, e.g. with Rails).</p>
  
  <p>So it looks to me like there are at least seven places to install gems now:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Rubygems system path</li>
  <li>Rubygems user path</li>
  <li>RVM system path</li>
  <li>RVM user path</li>
  <li>Bundler system path</li>
  <li>Bundler user path</li>
  <li>Vendor (per-app)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>So, what's the best way to manage all this? Do we use all three (Rubygems, Bundler, RVM) and tell them all to install gems to the same place? Do we use <code>sudo</code> all the time, some of the time, or never? And should we be using a different strategy on production and development machines?</p>
  
  <p>On a related note, are Bundler and RVM wrappers around Rubygems, are they alternatives to it, or are they completely orthogonal to it?</p>