{"id":16238,"date":"2012-02-08T22:45:46","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T05:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/css-tricks.com\/?p=16238"},"modified":"2015-01-15T07:38:28","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T14:38:28","slug":"musings-on-preprocessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/musings-on-preprocessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings on Preprocessing"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve been using Sass for pretty much everything I do recently. Here’s some musings on the journey. From hold-ups, to trip-ups, to turn-offs. From apps and teams to workflows and syntax.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The biggest contributor to me getting on the bandwagon was giving up my going-commando<\/em> live FTP editing ways. Yeah, Coda<\/a> is awesome, but it’s bad habit forming. It makes it way too easy to work live instead of local1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n Working local is full of obvious advantages. Namely, 1)<\/b> It’s fast 2)<\/b> You can edit stuff to your heart’s content without worry you’re screwing up a live site and 3)<\/b> It allows you to effectively work on a team through version control (more on that later).<\/p>\n So just do it. If you work only on static sites, you can just start doing it. Work from a folder somewhere on your machine. If you work on PHP sites (e.g. WordPress, Joomla, PHP, Vanilla, CodeIgnitor, CakePHP, and a million<\/em> more) then using MAMP (my screencast<\/a>) is ideal. Of course there are variants of MAMP for all platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you are using something like Ruby or Python, well, chances are you know how to set up that stuff anyway so you’re fine.<\/p>\n Now that I’m working primarily on projects that run on my local machine, using preprocessors is easy. I use a couple fantastic apps that I’ll cover later.<\/p>\n I’m a designer! I don’t know how to use the command line nor should I need to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That’s a very common thing to hear regarding SASS. Here’s the thing: I’m right there with you. I hate the command line. You don’t need to.<\/strong> I don’t, nearly ever, for anything2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n As childish as this may seem, another reason it took me so long to get on the preprocessor bandwagon was the crowd. And I’m not alone here. <\/p>\n Man, usually you even breathe about preprocessors and CSS and the LESS\/SASS folks dogpile you at greyhound speed.<\/p>\n — Eric A. Meyer (@meyerweb) January 26, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It’s hard to say anything at all about preprocessors, let alone something vaguely negative, without getting pounced on. <\/p>\n For a long time I thought: I write CSS everyday. I know CSS pretty well. My workflow is fine. I’m productive. Why does anything need to change?<\/em><\/p>\n The real answer is that nothing needs to change if you don’t want it to. If you’re perfectly happy doing what you are doing: godspeed. <\/p>\n I can tell you that after making the jump, I am actually more productive. And I write better CSS. And the projects I work on are in better, more maintainable shape because of it. And in some cases, faster3<\/sup>. My advice is: don’t let people get on your case. Just do what you gotta do. If you get some time to try it out, do it. And do it on a real project<\/strong>. Just tinkering around doesn’t count. You gotta really try it to see how it might work with your day to day.<\/p>\n I only have experience with Mac apps. Sorry. I’m sure there are pretty good ones for other platforms.<\/strong><\/p>\n The app that got me started on all this preprocessor goodness was LiveReload<\/a> (screencast<\/a>). I’m still a fan. It now available on the App Store<\/a> for $9.99. It is a menu bar app where clicking the icon in the menu bar opens a window of options.<\/p>\nCommand line blah blah blah<\/h3>\n
Other turnoffs<\/h3>\n
\n
The Apps<\/h3>\n