Getting started with HAML, SASS and CoffeeScript

I gave a talk on HAML, SASS and CoffeeScript at the brilliant Frontend 2010 earlier today. Because of limited time, I decided to spend time showing off how these technologies make us more efficient rather than spending lots of time installing the tools. So for those of you who want to get started using HAML, SASS and CoffeeScript, here is how to get the tools installed.

Get your Ruby on
First of all you’ll need a good Ruby install. I prefer using Ruby version manager (RVM) for this. It’s super easy to install, head on over to http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/ for the installation guide.

Then grab the latest Ruby by typing in..

rvm install ruby-1.9.2

..in your terminal.

Get HAML and SASS

Since these two fit so nicely together, the HAML Ruby gem includes both. This makes installing them a breeze, staying in your terminal type:

gem install haml

Bravo. You’ve got HAML and SASS installed. Take it for a spin using the techniques I showed in my talk.

Time for Coffee

Nothing tastes better than home-brewed coffee, so first of all you’ll need to install Homebrew. This is as easy as typing the following in your terminal:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsS http://gist.github.com/raw/323731/install_homebrew.rb)"

CoffeeScript ships as part of the node.js framework, so we’ll have to install that to get it. Having installed homebrew this can be done in a few keystrokes:

brew install node

You’re done! Type coffee in your terminal to get the interactive CoffeeScript shell running and off you go playing around with JavaScript’s well-behaved brother.

Watch Frontend 2010 to see the talk. It should be online sometime soon.