Does the order of gems in your Gemfile make a difference?

Question

Is the order in which you list your gems important? Are these two blocks equivalent?

gem \'carrierwave\'
gem \'rmagick\'

And

Answer 1

Bundler doesn't load gem dependencies by the order that you list them*, but it does go by source priority using this criteria:

1. Explicit path or git options append to a gem dependency, e.g.:

   gem 'some-gem', github: 'somebody/some-gem'
   

2. Explicitly defined dependencies for gems that are otherwise required implicitly from other gem dependecies, i.e., gem 'actionmailer' gem is implicitly required by gem 'rails'

3. If you have multiple sources added it will search from last to first.

See http://gembundler.com/v1.3/man/gemfile.5.html#SOURCE-PRIORITY

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* Edit: As per Matt's answer, depending on what you're trying to do (or what gems you're loading) the order MIGHT matter. See Even with bundler your gem order can be significant.