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I've been hearing a lot of noise about that. As a person who went from LESS to SCSS, is there any reason I should again switch my focus to PostCSS?

by jscheel 11y ago

pyre 11y ago
Not unless you like chasing the "latest and greatest" fad. If Sass (or Less) is working for you, then use it. If you are running into issues, then research alternatives. Both Less and Sass are actively maintained projects, so there's not reason to run around switching frameworks unless there is a concrete need for it.
- jscheel 11y ago
  I ran into significant issues with LESS that forced me to switch. I haven't seen any with SCSS, so that's the question. Is it just another new fad, or have people exhibited a real need for switching?
  - AhtiK 11y ago
    would you mind sharing what were the significant issues with LESS? I'm using LESS and just wondering what I might be missing.
    - jscheel 11y ago
      Well, I built a theming engine that utilized LESS in combination with a whole host of other stuff. It became a big problem there, but that's not really a use-case that is applicable to most. For more common issues, the way LESS does guarded mixins was super annoying, the breaking changes in minor version release, etc.
  - bshimmin 11y ago
    (I wanted to post this reply to DarkTree too, since it seemed equally applicable.) I've looked at PostCSS a couple of times lately and it seems "interesting", but the cited benefits (speed, modularity, the ambiguous "more powerful") aren't really things I've ever paused to worry about with Sass. And when I look at the first example of PostCSS, it seems dauntingly weird, though presumably some of that is actual future CSS - I have enough trouble keeping up with future JavaScript, so forgive me if I've not really kept au courant with whatever is happening in the future of CSS (I think I lost interest around the time they decided to make variables really, really complicated). Sass seems to solve all or most of the problems I care about most of the time with CSS, and it's easy to onboard people who've never used it before. In fact, to be honest, I only really use a subset of the features of Sass (variables, nesting, mixins, inheritance), so switching to something that has more powerful features that I would probably more powerfully have to eschew is... not very high on my list of priorities.
- DarkTree 11y ago
  I wouldn't say chasing the "latest and greatest" is always the case when trying the new fads. A lot of times it comes down to 'you don't know what you don't know'. I was doing fine using regular old CSS, and then I came upon some SASS examples, and holy cow, you can make variables, mixins, and do math? I never knew that was even a thing and it certainly wasn't a problem I was having with CSS, but I am glad I found it and now use it and its luxury.
kentor 11y ago
Because PostCSS allows you to write future spec compliant code, unlike sass. It's like writing ES6 then using a transpiler to generate ES5.
meerita 11y ago
CSS shouldn't be so complicated. It's all about selector simplicity, scalability. If you make too complicated sass, css or less, you're doing probably wrong.

I've been hearing a lot of noise about that. As a person who went from LESS to SCSS, is there any reason I should again switch my focus to PostCSS?

by jscheel 11y ago

I've been hearing a lot of noise about that. As a person who went from LESS to SCSS, is there any reason I should again switch my focus to PostCSS?

pyre 11y ago

Not unless you like chasing the "latest and greatest" fad. If Sass (or Less) is working for you, then use it. If you are running into issues, then research alternatives. Both Less and Sass are actively maintained projects, so there's not reason to run around switching frameworks unless there is a concrete need for it.

jscheel 11y ago
I ran into significant issues with LESS that forced me to switch. I haven't seen any with SCSS, so that's the question. Is it just another new fad, or have people exhibited a real need for switching?
- AhtiK 11y ago
  would you mind sharing what were the significant issues with LESS? I'm using LESS and just wondering what I might be missing.
  - jscheel 11y ago
    Well, I built a theming engine that utilized LESS in combination with a whole host of other stuff. It became a big problem there, but that's not really a use-case that is applicable to most. For more common issues, the way LESS does guarded mixins was super annoying, the breaking changes in minor version release, etc.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  (I wanted to post this reply to DarkTree too, since it seemed equally applicable.) I've looked at PostCSS a couple of times lately and it seems "interesting", but the cited benefits (speed, modularity, the ambiguous "more powerful") aren't really things I've ever paused to worry about with Sass. And when I look at the first example of PostCSS, it seems dauntingly weird, though presumably some of that is actual future CSS - I have enough trouble keeping up with future JavaScript, so forgive me if I've not really kept au courant with whatever is happening in the future of CSS (I think I lost interest around the time they decided to make variables really, really complicated). Sass seems to solve all or most of the problems I care about most of the time with CSS, and it's easy to onboard people who've never used it before. In fact, to be honest, I only really use a subset of the features of Sass (variables, nesting, mixins, inheritance), so switching to something that has more powerful features that I would probably more powerfully have to eschew is... not very high on my list of priorities.
DarkTree 11y ago
I wouldn't say chasing the "latest and greatest" is always the case when trying the new fads. A lot of times it comes down to 'you don't know what you don't know'. I was doing fine using regular old CSS, and then I came upon some SASS examples, and holy cow, you can make variables, mixins, and do math? I never knew that was even a thing and it certainly wasn't a problem I was having with CSS, but I am glad I found it and now use it and its luxury.

kentor 11y ago

Because PostCSS allows you to write future spec compliant code, unlike sass. It's like writing ES6 then using a transpiler to generate ES5.

meerita 11y ago

CSS shouldn't be so complicated. It's all about selector simplicity, scalability. If you make too complicated sass, css or less, you're doing probably wrong.