Thank you everyone who helped me :) I've decided to let Debian deals with its own gems provided by packages (actually, I'm not even supposed to know that some ruby gems are involved) ;) Besides, I install additional gems I found on GitHub etc. via 'gem install --user-install'. I'm keeping a listing of those local gems and will update them individually. I will then restrain myself from launching a global 'gem update'
PS: If some of you don't know about it, I recommend fusuma (ruby code available at https://github.com/iberianpig/fusuma). It's pretty handy as it allows you to assign actions (xdotool, evdev) to gestures on your touchpad (pinch, swipe). Releases are regular and the developer is nice & reactive. So far, so good :) Best regards, l0f4r0