If you code HTML, Zen Coding will change your life

Take SASS's variables and arithmetic, for instance. I agree that CSS desperately needs some way to abstract out common values. But any decent webapp will already be using some sort of template system, and the template system will have some sort of variable. Why not use it and be consistent with the rest of your UI? If you introduce SASS into the mix, you just have to do things one way in your CSS and another way in your markup.

Same thing with Zen Coding. Instead of using an editor plugin that expands abbreviations (which then have to be maintained), why not use your template system and avoid writing all that code in the first place? If I were writing the example listed here, it'd look something like this:

  
    
      
        {{#CELL}}{{/CELL}}
    
  

Yes, there's still room for improvement, and yes, I wish my editor were more aware of available template variables. But I also don't have to maintain the 5 separate tags once I've typed them out, I can change one and have its updates be reflected across all the generated code. I can avoid those pesky closing tags by simply not typing them; the HTML spec doesn't require them, all browsers handle it fine, and it saves end-user latency as well. And I don't need to learn a new tool, I just have to use my existing tools better.