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CSS

Matthew Huntley
Matthew Huntley
33,883 Points

Is it wiser to learn Sass instead of Less amidst Bootstrap 4 release?

Hi All,

I'm currently taking the Bootstrap 4 Basics course and I've been reading up on some of the platform's features. One of the key differences I noticed between Bootstrap 3 and Bootstrap 4 is the latter exclusively uses Sass as its CSS preprocessor, whereas 3 used both Less and Sass.

I was wondering if you had any insight into why this is the case. Was there any particular reason the folks at Bootstrap "abandoned" Less, if you will? The reason I ask is because I've been learning Less in-depth over the past few months but now I'm wondering if I should switch gears and move over to Sass. Is Sass just more liked in the front end community? Is it more future-proof?

Any feedback you could provide would be most appreciated.

David Johnson
David Johnson
3,615 Points

If you're only planing on learning one, I'd go with Sass, it can be a bit more complicated initially, but in the long term it will most likely be more worth your time.

Sass and Less are both awesome and have great features that make life much easier. At the moment though, Sass has gained much more popularity in the industry and is becoming more of the standard. This wasn't the case a few years ago, but for now it seems the more popular choice.

I think this is due to the amount of integrations Sass can have, but to be honest you won't be at a disadvantage learning Less. Many developers love Less and the core has the same functionality as Sass. Here's a couple good links about some differences and popularity.

https://www.keycdn.com/blog/sass-vs-less/

https://css-tricks.com/sass-vs-less/

1 Answer

Bootstrap 4 was built entirely from Sass, which isn't surprising considering how much traction it's had over the last while. There's almost double the userbase that supports Sass, there's more syntax clarity, the Compass library is pretty solid, just to start. Given that Mark Otto himself has said a lot of the same things and more, I'm banking on Sass being around for a while in the mainstream. Less will be around, sure. Some people don't like change, some people still like what it's good at, but like with most things like this, it's largely driven by what's in play now. If you're aiming to stay relevant and have skills to make you valuable, I'd aim for Sass, or heck, even add on some PostCSS (nodding at the tweet I linked). There's still some value left in Less, and you never know when you'll have to plow your way through Less's territory. Less will still be around, and who knows, someone might pick it up and turn it into something better and drive more people to use it for more things, so it's not like you're wasting your time. I would keep it under your belt, maybe treat it as a weekend project, use it while you've got it and keep it fresh, but I'd definitely consider following the trends with your workflow as well.

Matthew Huntley
Matthew Huntley
33,883 Points

Thanks so much, mwagner, especially for the link to Mark Otto's comments on Sass.