Why use HAML (and SASS) if you already know HTML?

Why should I use C since I already know Assembly? Why should I use Ruby since I already know C?<p>Haml and Sass are elegant tools for simplifying view code, and I never, ever use ERB or CSS anymore if I can avoid it.

James Britt wrote the definitive post (in my opinion) on the use of Haml: <a href="http://www.jamesbritt.com/2009/4/29/thoughts-on-haml" rel="nofollow">http://www.jamesbritt.com/2009/4/29/thoughts-on-haml</a>

If you're a one-man team who does the whole stack on your own personal project, something like HAML might be for you.<p>However I have to say, in 10+ years of working on multi-person, multi-discipline web teams, there isn't one to whom i could see having recommending something like HAML.<p>Just raises too high a bar for designers and front-end developers (ie CSS/HTML specialists), for whom learning a new language is actually a fairly big deal.<p>SASS seems to be enough like CSS that it wouldn't necessarily pose a comparable problem to the designer brain. I could see designers grokking its basic features like variables and seeing them as a thing that gave them more power.<p>If my experience is representative, though, configuration might be SASS' achilles heel right now. Really gave it the ol' college try and my SASS files never QUITE seemed to compile how and when i expected. Compass was even worse in that regard for me. I am getting old though, so maybe i've just lost a step or two :) Anyone else have similar experiences?

A lot of IDEs/text editors can autocomplete HTML closing tags, so I find the comparison based on characters moot.<p>I'll admit it might make things easier to navigate with the eyes. But on the other hand it seems to abstract something that's really not that complicated to begin with.

I've only been using HAML &#38; SASS for around a month and I'm by no means an expert. I've found that using mixins saves me a lot of time. At the top of my stylesheets I lay out bits that I repeat a lot such as:<p><pre><code> =rounded-corners(!amount) border-radius= !amount -moz-border-radius= !amount -webkit-border-radius= !amount </code></pre> And then add them into the UI:<p><pre><code> .curvybox +rounded-corners(7px)</code></pre>

An alternative to SASS, if you are looking for one, is "less" (<a href="http://lesscss.org/" rel="nofollow">http://lesscss.org/</a>).

Good luck giving that to a designer.

I do not use HAML in my projects because it is much easier to find somebody who can understand 'html-templates'.