Less Web Development Cookbook Paperback – January 31, 2015

Over the few years, evolution CSS and features brought in by CSS3 have made Responsive Web Design (RWD) fairly easier, but RWD has added complexities to CSS3 maintenance, particularly for larger websites.This is because CSS/CSS3 is still a simple style sheet language. Less CSS (http://lesscss.org) bring in the concept of modern programming language, including variable definition, operator, functions, code reusability and design patterns to make CSS development and maintenance easier.This book not only introduces Less as a programming language to extent to CSS3 and dives into its feature set extensively, providing cookbook/examples for each feature. These easy to follow recipes reduces the learning curve tremendously. I must mention, this book is definitely not for learning about style sheets from the ground up. A moderate know-how of CSS and a basic understanding of programming concepts (functions, variables, arrays, etc.) is necessary in order to grasp many of the Less concepts. Refer to "Less Web Development Essentials" if you are starter with Less.I found the organization and gradual progression from basics such as installation to more advanced recipes for development of production ready scalable, modular and maintainable CSS very useful.The recipes in this book start with installation, use of debugging techniques and tools, use of variables, mix-ins, and use of built-in functions to get quickly up to speed while learning Less.Most of intermediate and advanced recipes such as extending and use of mix-ins libraries could be real time saver. Also found some of the techniques described herein to define layout, use of Less with Bootstrap, WordPress, valuable. The book also covers Less as used in Bootstrap and WordPress and helps getting slightly hands-on, although that is not the purpose of this book and it is not covered in-depth.Overall, the book has met my expectations, could serve as reference as how-to guide. A lot of information is there, to dive right into real world CSS development with Less.