The last few years have found me writing less and less code as part of my day to day activities, but that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping tabs on the latest CSS3 and HTML5 features and techniques for writing efficient and maintainable code. And so it was with great pleasure that I dove into an early peek at Sass for Web Designers from Dan Cederholm a couple days ago.

Like every book from A Book Apart, Sass for Web Designers gets to the point, fast. At a trim 98 pages, this is a brisk and easily digestable read. It’s not comprehensive by any means and certainly not a retelling of the Sass documentation. We should all be thankful for that.

Aside from some introductory housekeeping, the book focuses on a few key concepts such as formatting styles, using variables and mixins, before diving into real world use-cases such as easier to maintain media queries and dealing with highdpi images.

Ultimately Dan’s clear and succinct voice and little touches of humour are what make the book a pleasure to read. I’ve used Sass a bit myself and appreciate Dan’s hesitation to adopt it because it echoes my own experience. If your CSS ain’t broke… But by focusing on how much gain can come from little changes using some of the most impactful aspects of Sass, why it makes sense is just as clear as how to actually do it.

If you’re already a Sass power user, this might not be the book for you, but if you’re slow on the uptake of CSS pre-processors like Sass or Less, or just want to get a peek into Dan’s own CSS workflows, then this is a fabulous primer and easily the best intro to using Sass that I’ve seen.

Sass for Web Designers will be available in November.