Sass vs Sketch

You are able to declare custom functions with Sass (for example, converting units) which can be easily invoked, even when using shorthand properties. This results in cleaner, more reusable code.

Sass allows you to nest selectors which results in code that is both faster to write and cleaner to read.

For example, this:

.parent 
  color: blue
  .child
    color: yellow

Will compile to this:

.parent {
  color: blue;
}
.parent .child {
  color: yellow;
}

Another big advantage for Sass is the very active community pushing the development forward at a rapid pace. Sass is constantly coming out with bug fixes, and are often the first to come out with improvements.

This is an important factor to keep in mind when picking a preprocessor to invest your time into.

It comes with two possible syntaxes:

• Sass - No parens or semicolons allowed and the nesting is dictated with whitespace.
• SCSS - SCSS syntax is a superset of CSS – which means SCSS can be written as CSS, but has been expanded to include the features of Sass as well.

SCSS is easier to pick up for beginners and Sass has a cleaner syntax. Having both syntaxes means you can pick the one that best suits your coding style.

The mandatory syntax rules for both SCSS and Sass results in a more consistent code. For a more detailed analysis between Sass and SCSS go here. To see a nice comparison of the Sass syntax against CSS and SCSS go here.

Sass simplifies minifying CSS files by offering a one-line command that will output a minified version.

It's very comfortable and easy to write/learn Sass, even for beginners.

Sass can be used with a framework called Compass, which provides additional functions and mixins which can reduce the amount of code you have to write.
For example, Compass will take care of vendor prefixes.

This:

div {
    background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(#F00, #000);
    background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(#F00, #000);
    background-image: -o-linear-gradient(#F00, #000);
    background-image: linear-gradient(#F00, #000);
   }

Can be written as:

.gradient {
    @include background-image(linear-gradient(#F00, #000));
}

For a full list of features, check out the Compass documentation.

Rather than being limited to editing the outputted CSS file in devtools, with source maps you are able to manipulate the original .scss file.

There is also a C/C++ port of the Sass CSS precompiler called Libsass that decouples Sass from Ruby. It is very fast, portable and easy to build and integrate with a variety of platforms and languages.

The latest implementation of Sass is written in Dart, and compiles to pure JS with no native code or external dependencies, means you no longer need Ruby or libSass.

Since it's written in Ruby, it's easier and faster to use with Ruby apps.

Sketch is essentially a version of Photoshop built from the ground up to suit the workflow of web designers.

Sketch is hugely popular among designers so there are a lot of well maintained community resources for everything from iPhone frames to iOS/Android UI elements & icons.

Reactive panels keep the UI for Sketch clean from the sort of clutter the panel system in Photoshop suffers from. The panels in Sketch change based on the object in question, saving you from having to have a multiple separate panels.

Sketch lets you re-use the same design in multiple places, with changes synced throughout the various places it is used. You can also create text styles to sync typography changes.

Artboards let you easily work on multiple views side by side. Great for having a separate artboard on each page for the various responsive sizes.

You can rescale assets without quality loss, easily export x2 assets for retina designs and design high quality icons & artwork. Being pixel aware lets you set a grid and snap objects to it as well as round to the nearest pixel edge to clean up your layers.

Sketch has a built in exporter that supports PDF, JPG and PNG.

You can set the square grid to whatever dimensions you like as well as set thicker lines every x blocks. You can also configure the color of the lines to make them as obvious or subtle as you wish and toggle the grid with a keyboard shortcut (crtl+g).

Mirror lets you connect your iPhone to sketch and see how your current artboard looks on mobile. It's really useful as you can live check changes which lets you rapidly iterate mobile design.

Holding down alt will show the smart guides that show the distances between any layer you hover over to nearby layers or the edges of the artboard. Very useful for checking your spacing or aligning layers.