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PreCSS vs Sass: What are the differences?
Introduction
This Markdown code provides a comparison between PreCSS and Sass, highlighting their key differences. PreCSS and Sass are CSS preprocessors that enhance the functionality and productivity of regular CSS.
- Interoperability: PreCSS is compatible with both CSS and Sass syntax, whereas Sass uses its own syntax. This gives PreCSS the advantage of easier integration into existing projects that use CSS, as developers do not need to learn a new syntax.
- Features: PreCSS provides additional features not found in Sass, such as custom at-rules and custom properties. These features allow developers to extend the functionality of CSS and have more flexibility in their stylesheets.
- Variable Scope: Sass uses lexical scoping for variables, ensuring that variables are only accessible within their defined scope. PreCSS, on the other hand, does not have built-in scoping for variables, making them global by default. This difference can impact the maintainability and predictability of stylesheets.
- Tooling Support: Sass has a more mature ecosystem with extensive tooling support, including popular libraries like Compass and Bourbon. PreCSS, although growing in popularity, has a smaller tooling ecosystem. This can affect the availability of resources and community support when using PreCSS.
- Ease of Use: Sass offers a higher level of abstraction with features like mixins and inheritance, making it easier for developers to write and organize their stylesheets. PreCSS, while still powerful, may have a steeper learning curve and require more manual configuration.
- Community Adoption: Sass has a larger community and is widely adopted in the industry, with many resources and online communities available for support. PreCSS, being a newer technology, may have a smaller community and fewer available resources.
In summary, PreCSS and Sass have key differences in interoperability, features, variable scope, tooling support, ease of use, and community adoption. Ultimately, the choice between the two depends on the specific project requirements, existing technology stack, and developer preferences.
Originally, I was going to start using Sass with Parcel, but then I learned about Stylus, which looked interesting because it can get the property values of something directly instead of through variables, and PostCSS, which looked interesting because you can customize your Pre/Post-processing. Which tool would you recommend?
Pros of PreCSS
- Sass in PostCSS1
Pros of Sass
- Variables613
- Mixins594
- Nested rules466
- Maintainable410
- Functions300
- Modular flexible code149
- Open source143
- Selector inheritance112
- Dynamic107
- Better than cs96
- Used by Bootstrap5
- If and for function3
- Better than less2
- Inheritance (@extend)1
- Custom functions1
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Cons of PreCSS
Cons of Sass
- Needs to be compiled6