What Is The Full Form Of SASS?
The full form of SASS is Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets.
SASS is a stylesheet language. It is a CSS extension and is fully compatible with all CSS versions. It saves time by reducing the CSS repetition. SASS allows you to write CSS more conveniently and efficiently. And there are two ways to write it, one is by using SCSS syntax, and the other is SASS syntax. It makes the code more efficient, faster, and easier to maintain by allowing you to write DRY code (Don’t Repeat Yourself).
The original syntax files (intended syntax) and the newer syntax (SCSS) have traditional extensions. They are .sass and .scss, respectively. The SassScript creates blocks of CSS rules for various selectors- when it gets interpreted, as defined by the Sass file. SASS is a preprocessor to CSS, and it is free for download and use.
When Should You Use SASS?
One can use the CSS preprocessor SASS when the stylesheets are more complex, larger, and difficult to maintain. SASS allows users to deploy the features that don’t exist in the CSS, like nested rules, variables, imports, mixins, built-in functions, inheritance, and other stuff.
History of SASS
- Hampton Catlin initially designed SASS, and Natalie Weizenbaum developed it in 2006.
- After the initial versions, Chris Eppstein and Weizendaum continue to extend SASS using SassScript.
- SassScript is a scripting language- used in Sass files.
Major Implementations of SASS
SassScript implements multiple languages. Here are some of the noteworthy implementations:
- libSass- the open-source C++ implementation.
- The original open-source Ruby implementation.
- The open-source Dart implementation.
- The official JavaScript implementation- published as npm.
- An unofficial Java implementation- JSass.
- An unofficial SCSS/SASS implementation in PHP- phamlp.
- Java implementation of Sass with Vaadin.
- A Firefox XUL (legacy) extension- Firebug for web development.
Characteristics of SASS
- Sass is an abbreviation for Syntactically Awesome Stylesheet.
- It is perfectly compatible with all the versions of CSS.
- It is a CSS superset.
- Sass supports nesting, variables, and mixins.
- It is an extension to CSS.
- It acts as a pre-processor for CSS.
- Sass is more powerful than CSS.
- It reduces the repetition of CSS and thus, saves a lot of time.
- It is free for use and download.
How Does SASS Work?
- A browser cannot understand the SASS code. A person would need a Sass pre-processor for converting the Sass code into the standard CSS.
- The process followed here is known as transpiling. Transpiling is a term used to describe the process of taking a source code written in one language and translating/transforming it into another language.
- A user needs to give some Sass code to a transpiler (for some program), and then they get some CSS code back.
Benefits of SASS
- Sass requires less writing as compared to CSS.
- It allows you to reuse the codes.
- If the Stylesheets get larger, difficult to maintain, and complex- a CSS pre-processor can help a lot.
- Sass allows a user to deploy some features that don’t exist in the CSS at all, like nested rules, variables, mixins, inheritance, imports, built-in functions, and more.
Limitations of SASS
- Sass is very hard to troubleshoot.
- The browsers don’t use SASS. So, you have to convert it to standard CSS using a Sass pre-processor.
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