Difference between .sass and .scss

When I first started down the path of CSS preprocessors I was overwhelmed by the different options (sass, less, stylus), the differences in the syntax, and most of all I had no idea how I was supposed to get started with this new approach to writing CSS.

If you are a frequent user of CodePen.io you will notice that there are a few options when it comes to the flavour of CSS that you can choose.

• SASS with Compass
• SCSS with Compass
• LESS
• Regular ol’ CSS

Don’t be confused by the SASS and SCSS options, although I was initially, .scss is Sassy CSS and is the next generation of .sass. An explanation from the website

If that didn’t make sense you can see the difference in code below.

/* SCSS */
$blue: #3bbfce;
$margin: 16px;

.content-navigation {
  border-color: $blue;
  color: darken($blue, 9%);
}

.border {
  padding: $margin / 2; margin: $margin / 2; border-color: $blue;
}

In the code above we use ; to separate the declarations. I’ve even added all the declarations for .border onto a single line to illustrate this point further.

In contrast, the SASS code below must be on different lines with indentation and there is no use of the ;.

/* SASS */
$blue: #3bbfce
$margin: 16px

.content-navigation
  border-color: $blue
  color: darken($blue, 9%)

.border
  padding: $margin / 2
  margin: $margin / 2
  border-color: $blue

You can see from the CSS below that the SCSS style is a lot more similar to regular CSS than the older SASS approach.

/* CSS */

.content-navigation {
  border-color: #3bbfce;
  color: #2b9eab;
}

.border {
  padding: 8px;
  margin: 8px;
  border-color: #3bbfce;
}