Sass and Compass for Designers (Community Experience Distilled)

I confess, I've been a Ben Frain fan for a while. I decided to get his new book when I heard him talk on ShopTalkShow episode 65. It did not disappoint. Ben provides simple instructions to get Sass & Compass up and running with the (cough) command line. After that, Ben lays a solid foundation on the integral components of Sass & Compass, including mixins, placeholders, functions and more. I say foundation because this book will not teach you how to write great code... I'm not sure that any book will (though feel free to respond with suggestions). What I believe Ben's goal was with this book was to show you what is possible with Sass & Compass, and give you a foundation in how Sass & Compass make it possible to craft your CSS in a more programmatic, modular and scaleable way. Sass and Compass for Designers exceeded my expectations in accomplishing that. This book is perfect for any designer who has yet to be sold on Sass & Compass, as well as those looking to expand their knowledge of Sass & Compass. If you are already an expert in Sass, there are probably better resources out there. For me, this book was perfect.

I was always against the use of LESS and SASS in my workflow...didn't quite understand how it would benefit from them with the large team that I work with...figured it may be more of a learning curve that I was willing to decide on implementing for everyone else when they need to make a change. Then we started a new project and I was converting some balsamiq mock-ups over to code and thought I'd get this book to give it a try, since I was developing the styles without anyone else's input nor involvement.Yes. It worked. Not only did it work, but I love the various mixins and how they can help generate a block of color-states based on one initial color declaration. This book had a nice flow to it and I've learned to reference it where needed. None the less, it was a good initial buy on the topic and doesn't conflict with the amount of googling I still do to make things happen.

This book is easy to read, and the examples, for the most part, work. I did run into a couple of problems with the downloaded software, as this book has been out long enough that some of the routines presented will generate "deprecated" or other fatal errors do to updates in Compass, SASS and Susy scripts. With a little digging through the respective websites, I was able to make the changes to get the examples working properly.On the plus side, I learned a lot, and have been able to convert a couple of major sites to the SASS/Compass structure to compile CSS, and can already see the benefits and increased efficiency in both developing and maintaining sites in a much quicker and cost-effective manner.

If you've been wanting to learn Sass for web development, but have been turned off by books and tutorials geared mostly toward programmers, then this is the book for you. Ben Frain gives you wonderfully human advice on crafting your own pre-processor workflow, including details and clear examples that will quickly have you styling sites using Sass and Compass. Along the way, you'll learn important nuggets about CSS3 in general and how Sass and Compass can not only improve your work as a front-end developer, but also save you enough time to finally enjoy your weekends. Particularly well done are chapters on using Sass and Compass to control color choices. I would recommend this book to designers, of course, as the title indicates, but also to any developer looking for guidance within context. Frain explains the complex in clear detail without dumbing things down. Pick up a copy today! The best book on Sass and Compass I've found so far, bar none.

This book is a must have for Sass and Compass as it is extremely well written, fun to read, and goes through the code step by step. I am a developer who played with Sass on my own and never quite felt that comfortable with it, and thought the documentation on the web always fell short. This book covers all the loop holes and gets into all the detail you need to run with this on your own.There are download files on the website that go along with each chapter so you end up with a great library for your future Sass projects. I highly recommend this book!

I have changes my review 3 times but now after reading the whole book i realized that it is good book to start with sass but why 4 star now as in starting it looks more confusing to me as starting some topics and not finishing them i.e will read in detail in chapter 3 otherwise book is good.Helped me a lot to study sass in detail

This book has taken my SASS and CSS skills to the next level. Ben takes a great approach to modularization via partials files. Lots of great examples and plenty of tips and tricks to do pretty much whatever you need to do with SASS. I highly recommend this book for anyone getting serious about production level CSS.

This is an amazing book which has revolutionated the way I write CSS. The book is well written and very simple to read. What I have appreciated more of this book is that it is not only a book about Sass, it is a book full of suggestions about design best practices and latest technology and tools available, and Ben has been an excellent teacher for me and my business. I highly recommend this book!

Very easy to understand book and a good intro to Sass/Compass and the command line. I did need to look up a few extra command line bits as I'd never used it before, but its a good stepping stone to get you started. Before you buy, understand that it is printed in greyscale so in some instances having the e-book could be better because I think that is in colour and it would make more sense when the author refers to colour sass combos in screenshots.Only halfway through reading it - but so far so good. Looking forward to the responsive grid aspects!Really pleased I brought it.

You start reading this book and the author then says you need a Mac. Readers should be warned

Having put off Sass for a while I decided this was the book that would get me started, judging from how much I learned from the authors previous book. The author's relaxed and friendly writing style leads to an enjoyable reading experience rather than the chore that other books can be to get through. This book guides you through Sass and Compass from start to finish, and allows you to go as deep as you want into the language. Even if you just use one or two aspects from the book such as variables and colours you'll save a bunch of time when front end developing. This book is great for both learning and for future reference.

if you know the difference between html & CSS and want to take your site production to the next level then this book is perfect. The tutorials are clear to follow and the book really highlights the benefits of using a pre-processing system, like SASS. Highly recommended.

My background is that I knew HTML and CSS, but had never heard of SASS, Ruby or the like before I started reading this book. One of the best computer books I've read. We're a computer training company, and I recognise a kindred spirit - the author explains everything clearly and without assumptions. Thoroughly recommended (I'm on page 49 so far).