Understanding Comments in Sass

Comments in any programming or scripting language serve the essential role of making code understandable for future reference or for other developers. Commenting out sections of code can also be useful for disabling certain code lines or blocks without deleting them. This feature proves to be handy when testing parts of code. In Sass, which is a preprocessor scripting language that is interpreted or compiled into CSS, the process of commenting follows a similar pattern to other languages, but with some slight differences.

In Sass, to comment out a line of code, you can use the /* This is a comment in Sass. */ syntax. Here's a practical example:

body {
  /* This line of code will set the background color of the body to lightgray */
  background-color: lightgray;
}

In this case, the part within the /* */ will not affect the functionality of the code when it's compiled. However, this form of a comment will be included in the generated CSS file.

Understanding the different types of comments in Sass will enhance your efficiency as a developer. This is because besides the standard multiline CSS comments that Sass supports (/*...*/), there is also a single-line comment syntax available in Sass (//...), but it won't be included in the generated CSS.

For instance:

body {
  // This line of code will set the background color of the body to lightgray
  background-color: lightgray;
}

Whereas the multiline comments are preserved in the resulting CSS if the Sass is compiled in expanded or compact modes, single-line comments are stripped out regardless of the output style.

Knowing when to use each type of comment is beneficial not only for personal code management but can also significantly improve the collaboration workflow when working in a team of developers. As a best practice, use single-line comments (//...) for development notes or todos that you don't want to end up in your final CSS.

For multiline or important comments that you'd like to remain in your CSS output, use the /*...*/ comment style. Just bear in mind the effect on your final CSS file size with the increased use of multiline comments. This can become a deciding factor in how you manage your comments, especially when you're working on large-scale projects where performance is crucial.