History of Sass or SCSS Programming

Sass, or Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets, is a powerful CSS preprocessor that simplifies styling with variables, nesting, and mixins. SCSS (Sassy CSS) is its modern syntax, fully compatible with CSS, making it easier for developers to adopt.

Initial Development

Sass was designed by Hampton Catlin in 2006, and developed by Nathan Weizenbaum contributing to its early growth. Its goal was to provide advanced features missing in plain CSS without sacrificing readability.

Sass Knowledge Graph

Creator Natalie Weizenbaum, Chris Eppstein
Initial Release 2006
Stable Release 2025
SCSS Appeared 2010
Paradigm CSS Preprocessor, Multi-paradigm
File Extensions .sass, .scss See complete file types
Open Source Yes
Typing Discipline Dynamic, loosely typed
Developed By Sass Core Team
Influenced By CSS, Haml, YAML, Less
Influenced Less, Stylus, Tritium, Bootstrap
Website www.sass-lang.com

Background History of Sass or SCSS

Sass emerged to streamline CSS coding by introducing features like variables, mixins, and SCSS nesting. Its development encouraged cleaner, modular, and reusable style sheets.

  • Initial release in 2006 brought advanced styling features
  • Community contributions expanded libraries and frameworks
  • Open source model kept Sass adaptable and widely used
  • SCSS syntax introduced for CSS compatibility

SCSS (Sassy CSS) Syntax Introduction

  • SCSS appeared in 2010 with CSS-like syntax
  • Supports all CSS3 features
  • Allows use of variables, nesting, and mixins
  • Makes CSS-to-SCSS transition easier
  • Improved modular imports and compiler performance
  • Most widely used Sass syntax today

Community Growth

  • Strong developer community created mixins, functions, and extensions
  • Many frameworks, such as Compass, built around Sass

Open Source Evolution

  • Sass has remained open source since inception
  • The SCSS Core Team maintains the language and releases updates
  • Contributors worldwide improve features and performance

Sass/SCSS Versions Timeline

The following timeline highlights the key Sass and SCSS versions and their contributions to modern styling:

Sass Initial 2006
Initial release (November 28) with original indented .sass syntax by Hampton Catlin and Natalie Weizenbaum.
Sass 2.x 2007-2009
Added variables, mixins, selector inheritance, partials, and imports.
Sass 3.0 2010
Introduced SCSS syntax for CSS compatibility; both syntaxes supported henceforth.
Sass 3.1 2011
Added control directives (@if, @for), nested properties, and improved mixins.
Sass 3.2 2012
Introduced placeholder selectors (%), content blocks in mixins, and variable arguments.
Sass 3.3 2014
Added source maps, parent selector (&) in SassScript, and new list/map functions.
Sass 3.4 2015
Improved @import performance, caching, and error handling.
Sass 3.5 2016
Enhanced @extend for complex selectors and within @media; new color functions.
Sass 3.6 2018
Deprecation warnings for future changes; last major Ruby Sass update before EOL.
Dart Sass 1.0 2018
Dart Sass released as compatible replacement for Ruby Sass; focus on speed and modernity.
Dart Sass 1.23 2019
Introduced new module system (@use, @forward) to replace @import.
Dart Sass 1.77 2023
Added built-in support for color spaces and improved CSS compatibility.
Dart Sass 1.90 2025
Latest release (August) with configuration fixes and minor optimizations.