Fri05Feb

  1. Haml & Sass: Pointless abstraction?

    I remain unconvinced on the utility of Haml and Sass. I definitely am convinced it’s not commensurate with the airtime they get online and in dev circles.

    • Hand coding semantic, well-formed HTML is so trivial every professional developer should be able to do it. It’s not uncommon to have 10+ years HTML experience. People have literally grown up with it.
    • Textmate HTML bundle tab triggers and tag autoclosing completely negate the marginal benefit of Haml’s brevity.
    • The utility of hand coding CSS in CSSEdit 2 and seeing instant changes in the WebKit preview window > > > > anything that Sass can offer.

    I don’t see the point of Haml at all. One has to think of a document’s structure in HTML in order to write it in Haml and then have it parsed back into HTML! WTF?! Even as a Rubyist myself, I have to say that to advocate, let alone proselytize such an approach (as a very vocal minority online do) smacks of pure zealotry.

    I think Sass is good for software engineers. So if you’re a coder that wants to write your CSS in a very concise DRY style, go ahead and use it. Just expect your interface to look like it was created by an engineer and not a designer i.e. ugly, As one is less inclined to tweak to perfection if the browser has to be manually refreshed, instead of CSSEdit 2’s instant visual feedback. I can’t see how Sass would make it faster for designers to create beautiful interfaces stepping away from CSSEdit.

    I can only see Sass being a speed hump.

    Your thoughts?