chriseppstein

Just about everything I've learned since graduating college is summed up in this web page (which I did not write -- but found recently). Enjoy!

http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html

Sass provides inheritance to accomplish this same result but without spreading your selectors all over the place.

  .uno {
    @extend .dos;
    text-align: center;
  }
  .dos {
    color: green;
    font-size: 18px;
  }

Downvoted; really? What part of this reply was uninformative or offensive or off topic? FWIW, I'm one of the developers of Sass: http://nex-3.com/posts/78-chris-eppstein-joins-sass-team

Sass users will enjoy the following features:

  * No more = needed to use SassScript
  * $ instead of ! for variables
  * Support for CSS identifiers. E.g. solid instead of "solid"
  * Dashes can be used in place of underscores in variable names and sass functions.

There are a number of features planned for Sass 3.2 and beyond that address your other concerns, but Sass needed better infrastructure to do those. We have that now so we can go full steam ahead on new features. Expect the following in future releases:

  * Defining custom functions in Sass
  * Keyword arguments to mixins and maybe functions.
  * Support for a new directive called @extend
    that implements selector inheritance.
  * Optimizing compiler
  * Support for new core datatypes like List and Null

Summary of New Features in Sass 3:

  * New CSS-Based Syntax called SCSS is available
  * Full CSS3 Support
  * New Color Utilities and Support
  * Variable now start with $
  * No more Scripting context.
  * Dashes in variable names
  * Firebug Integration
  * Watcher for files and directories

You should look into xrefresh. It's a really great way to edit in sass and then see the changes in your browser right away.

Sass can even make this CSS framework more compact!

http://gist.github.com/302395

Just because they're officially supported, doesn't mean they aren't there to work around the syntax's obvious limitations. I've been tracking Haml's development for a very long time I the history of many of these features is a result of users' frustration with the syntax.

Tool support is a good reason to not use haml. I expect tool support will be there some day, but it's not really there yet. RubyMine has very nice haml support tho.

You can use the alligator operators to trim surrounding and internal whitespace. E.g.

    .foo> This has no whitespace outside the foo div.
    .foo< This has no whitespace just inside the foo div.
    .foo>< This has no whitespace outside or inside.

http://haml-lang.com/docs/yardoc/file.HAML_REFERENCE.html#wh...

I disagree. I should be held to the same standards as everyone else.

That's true, but it's also a play on words.

Haml (the syntax) sucks for content. This is a fact.

Haml (the project) provides ample facilities for working around the syntactic limitations.

This is true, but it's a hassle. The one time I needed to deploy and github was down, I had to read a link on their website and set things up. It was a real drag and delayed my launch by at least 15 min!!!

You're replying to the guy who writes Sass. He's right. It's not actually turing complete, but it could be made so with a relatively minor change.

And I'm the guy who invented most of the programming facilities of Sass and I'll tell you, they're not very good programming tools -- but they're enough to make some really great stylesheets.

You didn't read the article very well. he simply states that it would be used by fewer users directly.

The design and bug-free nature of a website is your job, just like it is in CSS. Sass can help you accomplish a more bug free design by giving you better tools for managing, organizing, and reusing your styles.

Trivial, from a technology perspective. Sass is not breaking any technical ground, that is true.

But Sass challenges the way stylesheet authors approach building and maintaining their code. And so from a work-flow perspective, Sass is incredibly disruptive.

That's incorrect. Your knowledge is more than 1 year old.

SassScript is Sass's built in scripting language and it is turing complete. Here's a stylesheet that calculates and displays the mandlebröt set using background colors:

http://gist.github.com/280756

M$ never promised to not be evil.

Yep. I've seen that. It's a must watch.

That's probably true. But one thing that was always innate in me: the ability to sit in front of a computer for 12 hours without going insane ;-)

I read a lot of other people's code. I think that's important to developing taste -- at least as important as writing a lot of code if not more so.

Great post!

I feel exactly the same way. But one thing I do think I have (and you do too, obviously) is taste. I can look at my code and see it as good or bad (most of the time bad). That means I can keep striving to make it good. And my eye for what is good and bad keeps maturing so when I go look at code I wrote two years ago that I was pretty proud of, I see bad code now.

Without the ability to see that your code can and should be better, your work ethic cannot kick in.

I'm reminded of folks who use IDEs that "help" them remember APIs via autocomplete dropdowns. It speeds them up initially but eventually leaves them completely dependent on their tool and incapable of writing code on their own. External knowledge is good, but internalizing that knowledge that you use regularly is even more important and will make you a better person.

Nope. But you can go read the source code: http://github.com/nex3/haml/blob/master/lib/sass/script/func...

Thanks! The theming aspects of compass-colors will continue to exist after 2.4 is released. I'm very pleased to see these functions merged into the sass core. They're very useful.

That said, Nathan did a ton of work to make these functions more efficient and to work correctly with alpha layers.

Edit: grammar.

This is negligence; plain and simple. Users have a right to expect web service providers to keep their private information secure with basic industry standards. Someone should sue them and set a precedent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability

I'm always a bit surprised whenever I hear that /. is still running. I'm sure they're still a very successful site, but it's been like, forever. Aren't they bored?

Looks like an awesome web framework. Rails blew my mind when I first learned it, but over the course of the last two years the various warts and inconsistencies have become apparent.

I look forward to learning this new web framework that is also called ruby on rails ;-)

You know what's funny: I know of several design firms that are using sass to generate their css and they deliver the generated CSS to their client without ever telling them that they used sass to make their development process faster.

If they had given you their Sass code, you would be empowered to make design changes much more easily that you could have with CSS. If I were you, I'd be demanding that my designers use it ;-)

I'm sorry if you took offense. Your arguments are valid ones -- they are borne of wisdom over time that makes you more risk averse. Early adopters throw this kind of caution to the wind because they see promise and are looking for a competitive edge. Instead of waiting for a tool to mature, they help it mature. It's not an insult that you've matured, you should take it as a kind of a compliment.

But the 10 years ago you wouldn't have taken your advice. 10 years ago CSS was not ubiquitous. There were not good tools. The ecosystem was just getting going. And yet somehow the tradeoff was worth it for you.

Technical designers learn sass quickly. They like it and so the tools will follow. The ecosystem will grow. Already Sass experience is considered a plus in job reqs for many forward-thinking startups. Sass and Compass will mature in the next few years, and you're objections will fall by the way side and a few years after that, instead of having a competetive advantage, you'll be at a competitive disadvantage by not using something like it.

I don't know if Sass and Compass will ultimately be the tools of choice for generating CSS, but I'm certain that there will be tools like them.