How HAML Helped My Development Process
Whenever I do front-end work, I'm writing in HAML and SASS. It helps me write HTML and CSS that is clean on my end and is very easy to maintain. Also, an added side effect is how it has helped my design process. The fact that I have to compile it each time I want to change something was cumbersome at first. Let me run through my old design process.
- Write 5-6 lines of HAML
- Run rake task to compile HAML/SASS
- See how it looks in browser
- Write a couple lines of CSS
- Rake task
- Check browser
- Repeat
The rake task is no small item to do, and it really slows you down. Even then, if I had gotten the CSS wrong, I need to change the SASS file, run the rake task again, then check the browser in an endless loop of hell. What I realized is that compiling less often not only sped up my process (of course), but it helped me get to that abstraction point of layout vs presentation.
The new development process:
- Write the entire HAML page
- Write the entire SASS document
- Rake
- Win (refactor)
I love HAML.
