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Comment by pallandt | Hacker News Reader

Wonderful, perfect timing. I've tried hard to stay away from Bootstrap for various reasons, but I really need to use it for a project I'm working on currently. Can someone more familiar with its history (and planned future) please give me a recommendation in regards to what implementation I should use, LESS or the SASS-ported version? Have there been any talks of considering SASS for future Boostrap official releases? Is LESS still active and evolving? I'm obviously strongly in favour of SASS, but I'm not the end-user of the project.

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To provide a counter-point to jwcooper, I've used both the original LESS and the SCSS version, and I have run into a couple of minor quirks (things like elements inside input groups not lining up correctly) with the latter.

While I've always personally preferred SCSS over LESS, when I'm starting new projects these days I tend to just use the LESS version of Bootstrap, as it makes it much easier to update, it's tested much more widely, and fixes for any issues that do crop up are available faster.

Sigh...I'll probably have to do it in LESS as well. Do you have any tips on good typography mixins for LESS, if any? I'd miss Compass and Typeplate very much if I end up switching. Thanks to everyone that replied btw.

Ooh, I hadn't seen Typeplate. Thanks for the tip :).

I'm not aware of any LESS equivalents (but then again, I do very little LESS work).

It may be heresy, but I haven't had any issues using both preprocessors in a single project, so I'll often just use LESS for Bootstrap-related stuff and SCSS for everything else.

as I understand it, bootstrap-sass is going to become the official SCSS version of Bootstrap, and as such bugs on bootstrap-sass will be considered bugs on bootstrap itself.

I let go of my initial preference for SASS over LESS when I started working with TBS2, and continue to enjoy working with LESS. On general principles I'd recommend using the official LESS version.

Yes, LESS is actively developed and (incrementally) changing: https://github.com/less/less.js

As for Bootstrap, I have no insider information, but would be very surprised if they abruptly switched.

On the contrary: last year when I asked @mdo and @fat if Bootstrap would ever go mobile-first (vs the horrible mid-sized-first-and-scale-in-both–directions approach from TBS2), I got a flat "no" in response. [groan] So I have no idea what those guys might do in the future. But for them to switch doesn't seem likely to me.

FWIW My current project is using TBS3; so far, so good.

I've only ever used a SASS fork, and have never had any issues with compatibility or strange bugs. I think at this points it's safe to choose either LESS or SASS. The end-user won't ever know the difference, but you will.

Choose whatever pre-processor you're more comfortable using.

I leave it as straight up CSS and then add any overrides I need in a separate CSS file. That way when it comes time to upgrade I can just drop in the new Bootstrap CSS without worrying about a thing.

For a new codebase Zurb Foundation is a no brainer. It does everything bootstrap does, better, and it is way ahead in terms of responsive design, and I also think it's semantically cleaner.

If a web designer needs to by anywhere close to your stylesheets, I would recommend LESS. SASS (especially SCSS) is way too verbose and complicated.

Wow, I'd hate to be stuck working with a designer who couldn't learn Sass, especially seeing as how there's a Sass for Dummies book available:

http://www.abookapart.com/products/sass-for-web-designers

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