Part 22 - Learning SASS for Beginners

Written by Eric Muss-Barnes, 4 January 2019

Remember what I keep teaching you. Always be open-minded to learning new technologies, but do not waste your time with trendy nonsense that isn't going to help you be more productive and, most importantly, isn't going to help the users.

SASS is one of the most ridiculous technologies to come along in web development. Here is why. Imagine this...

Imagine learning a program, with all kinds of new commands and variables and features, but in the end, all the program does, is write a plain old CSS file for you to upload to your website.

Would that make any sense?

Would you want to waste time learning something like that?

Wouldn't it make more sense to just, become a more savvy and adept CSS programmer?

Why learn a whole new system, when all it does, it output a plain old CSS file?

Well, that is exactly what SASS and LESS and other CSS preprocessors are doing. They make no sense whatsoever! There is no reason for any developer to learn or use this technology, because it's just making your CSS unnecessarily complicated. You are adding more steps. You are adding more complexity. You are adding more effort to your workflow. I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy making more work for myself. When I'm changing the sparkplus on my motorcycle, and I drop the fuel tank bolt into the frame of my engine, and I have to spend another 20 minutes trying to dig it out of there, I'm not very pleased with the extra work I just created!

Auuugh!

I know.

Computer nerds can't relate to the dilemma, because they are wimps who are afraid of riding motorcycles. But, not you! You, my dear students are neither sissified pansies, nor wimps, and you have better things to do with your day than add more work to your efforts. That is why you won't waste precious hours of your life learning CSS preprocessors. After all, time itself is the most valuable thing you possess.

And remember, kids, the world owes you nothing... until you create things of value.

Glossary

SASS

A preprocessor for CSS, that simply writes CSS, which you could have written without SASS.

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