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Elm vs Sass: What are the differences?
Syntax and Language Paradigm: Elm is a functional programming language, whereas Sass is a style sheet language that is an extension of CSS. Elm follows a purely functional paradigm, while Sass is more focused on enhancing CSS features and functionality.
Type Safety: Elm is known for its strong type system that enforces type safety at compile time, eliminating runtime errors related to types. In contrast, Sass does not have the concept of type safety as it primarily focuses on providing additional features and syntactic sugar for CSS developers.
Compilation: Elm code is compiled to JavaScript, which enables it to run in the browser. On the other hand, Sass is compiled to CSS, allowing developers to write maintainable and scalable stylesheets but does not have the ability to compiled to another language like Elm.
Error Handling: Elm provides detailed and helpful error messages, aiding developers in identifying and fixing issues quickly. Sass, on the other hand, may provide limited error handling capabilities, making it more challenging to pinpoint and resolve errors efficiently.
Tooling and Ecosystem: Elm comes with a robust compiler and package manager, Elm Package, that helps manage dependencies efficiently. In comparison, Sass has a variety of build tools and integrations available, but may not have a standardized ecosystem like Elm.
Community Support: Elm has a smaller but dedicated community that emphasizes simplicity, correctness, and productivity. Sass, however, has a larger community due to its widespread use in web development for extending CSS features and providing style maintenance capabilities.
In Summary, Elm and Sass differ in their language paradigm, type safety, compilation target, error handling, tooling ecosystem, and community support.
Originally, I was going to start using Sass with Parcel, but then I learned about Stylus, which looked interesting because it can get the property values of something directly instead of through variables, and PostCSS, which looked interesting because you can customize your Pre/Post-processing. Which tool would you recommend?
Pros of Elm
- Code stays clean45
- Great type system44
- No Runtime Exceptions40
- Fun33
- Easy to understand28
- Type safety23
- Correctness22
- JS fatigue17
- Ecosystem agrees on one Application Architecture12
- Declarative12
- Friendly compiler messages10
- Fast rendering8
- If it compiles, it runs7
- Welcoming community7
- Stable ecosystem5
- 'Batteries included'4
- Package.elm-lang.org2
Pros of Sass
- Variables613
- Mixins594
- Nested rules466
- Maintainable410
- Functions300
- Modular flexible code149
- Open source143
- Selector inheritance112
- Dynamic107
- Better than cs96
- Used by Bootstrap5
- If and for function3
- Better than less2
- Inheritance (@extend)1
- Custom functions1
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Cons of Elm
- No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions)3
- JS interop can not be async2
- JS interoperability a bit more involved2
- More code is required1
- No JSX/Template1
- Main developer enforces "the correct" style hard1
- No communication with users1
- Backwards compability breaks between releases1
Cons of Sass
- Needs to be compiled6