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• The Discontinuation of node-fibers

  Posted 26 March 2021 by Natalie Weizenbaum

  We have recently received the unfortunate but not entirely surprising news that the node-fibers package has reached its end-of-life and will not be updated for compatibility with Node 16. Dart Sass has historically allowed JavaScript users to pass in node-fibers to improve the performance of the asynchronous render() method, but going forward this will unfortunately no longer be an option in Node 16 and on.

  There are a number of alternative options for reclaiming this lost performance, some of them which are available today, some which are in development, and some which are theoretical but could be made real with pull requests from users like you. Sadly, none of the options that are ready today are drop-in solutions with the same level of ease-of-use as node-fibers, so if that performance is crucial to you we recommend staying on Node 14 for the time being.

  What Happened?What Happened? permalink

  In order to understand how we got here, it’s important to know two pieces of history. First, why does Dart…

• Request for Comments: First-Class Calc

  Posted 15 March 2021 by Natalie Weizenbaum

  One of the absolutely most-requested features in Sass is the ability to more easily work with calc() expressions. These expressions have historically been parsed opaquely: between the parentheses, you can put any text at all, and Sass will just treat it as an unquoted string. This has simplified Sass’s parser, since we don’t have to support the specific calc() microsyntax, and it’s meant that we automatically support new features like the use of CSS variables within calc().

  However, it comes at a substantial usability cost as well. Because each calc() is totally opaque to Sass’s parser, users can’t simply use Sass variables in place of values; they have to interpolate variables explicitly. And once a calc() expression has been created, there’s no way to manipulate it with Sass the way you can manipulate a plain number.

  We’re looking to change that with a new proposal we call “First-Class Calc”. This proposal changes calc() (and other supported mathematical functions) from being parsed as unquoted strings to being parsed in-depth, and…

• LibSass is Deprecated

  Posted 26 October 2020 by Natalie Weizenbaum

  After much discussion among the Sass core team, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to officially declare that LibSass and the packages built on top of it, including Node Sass, are deprecated. For several years now, it’s been clear that there’s simply not enough engineering bandwidth behind LibSass to keep it up-to-date with the latest developments in the Sass language (for example, the most recent new language feature was added in November 2018). As much as we’ve hoped to see this pattern turn around, even the excellent work of long-time LibSass contributors Michael Mifsud and Marcel Greter couldn’t keep up with the fast pace of language development in both CSS and Sass.

  I’ll go into detail about what this means below, but here are the major points:

  • We no longer recommend LibSass for new Sass projects. Use Dart Sass instead.

  • We recommend all existing LibSass users make plans to eventually move onto Dart Sass, and that all Sass libraries make plans to eventually drop support for LibSass….

• Request for Comments: HWB Functions

  Posted 7 October 2020 by Natalie Weizenbaum

  The CSS working group has been up to all sorts of exciting stuff recently in the Color Level 4 spec, and the Sass team is starting to think about how to integrate those cool new features into Sass’s color model. We need more time to hammer out exactly the right designs for complex features like the Lab color space, but that doesn’t mean we can’t add a few new color goodies.

  Today we’re announcing a proposal for one such feature: built-in Sass functions for HWB colors! Once this proposal (drafted by Sass core team member Miriam Suzanne) is accepted and implemented, you’ll be able to write colors in HWB syntax and adjust their whiteness and blackness the same way you can adjust a color’s saturation and lightness today.

  The FunctionsThe Functions permalink

  Here are the new and improved functions this proposal adds:

  color.hwb()color.hwb() permalink

  The color.hwb() function defines a color using its hue, whiteness, and blackness. Like the existing rgb() and hsl() functions, It can either use…

• Request for Comments: Nested Map Functions

  Posted 16 September 2020 by Natalie Weizenbaum

  As Sass libraries and design systems get more complex and have more users with different needs, they tend to develop the need to share and override configuration and design tokens. This configuration is often hierarchical, and ends up being represented as maps that contain maps that contain still more maps. Up until now, Sass’s map functions haven’t really made it easy to work with this sort of nested map structure. But that’s changing with the latest language proposal, written by Sass core team member Miriam Suzanne.

  This proposal expands the existing map functions and adds a few new ones to make working with nested maps much easier than it was before. It’s based on helper functions that pop up in all sorts of Sass projects around the web, incorporating best practices back into the language itself.

  The FunctionsThe Functions permalink

  Here are the new and improved functions this proposal adds:

  map.get() and map.has-key()map.get() and map.has-key() permalink

  The map.get() and map.has-key() functions both now take any number of…

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