---
title:      "SASS"
ring:       adopt
quadrant:   languages-and-frameworks

---

SASS (Syntactically Awesome Style-Sheets) is an extension to native CSS, which, as a preprocessor, simplifies the generation of CSS by offering features that enable developers to more efficiently write robust, better readable and maintainable CSS.

Core features of SASS are:

*   Nesting of rules: CSS rules can be indented, reducing redundancy of selectors and increasing readability due to shorter selectors.
*   Use of variables: Commonly-used values such as colors can be stored in variables
*   Mixins: Often-used CSS blocks can be referenced by using mixins, which work like functions
*   Extends: CSS properties can be inherited
*   SASS files can be split into modules, which leads to smaller files and better file structures
*   Operators: Simple math calculations can be applied to CSS properties
*   Easily to integrate in nodejs-environments and build tools such s [NPM](/tools/npm.html), [Gulp](/tools/gulp.html) and [Grunt](/tools/grunt.html).

SASS has been widely adopted for many years and has evolved to an industry-standard backed by an active community since 2006.

The learning curve is very smooth as SASS is fully compatible to CSS, meaning that all features are optional: Starting with SASS is as easy as renaming .css-files to .scss in a first step and then refactoring it step-by-step with the use of SASS features.

At AOE, SASS has been recommended by the frontend COI and is used in nearly every current project.

More information:

*   [SASS Language](http://sass-lang.com/)
*   [SASSDoc](http://sassdoc.com/)
*   [Improving Sass code quality on](https://www.theguardian.com/info/developer-blog/2014/may/13/improving-sass-code-quality-on-theguardiancom) [theguardian.com](http://theguardian.com)