4 ms·

Obviously you are not the target audience for the main website; it explains how it works in general terms, i.e. what concepts should I know to understand its pu

Obviously you are not the target audience for the main website; it explains how it works in general terms, i.e. what concepts should I know to understand its purpose and usage; not how it works from a technical perspective. I only wish more open source websites followed this same approach, as it is the best way to introduce the tool to a public that may not know very well what a password manager is good for or how to use it properly. You probably should jump directly to the github project page[1], where you'll find that kind of technical description that you were expecting and didn't find. [1] https://github.com/lesspass/lesspass https://github.com/lesspass/lesspass

appleflaxen 10y ago
respectfully disagree. "how it works" should show you the internals "what it does" is better description if you are just going to tell me the inputs and outputs.
- TuringTest 10y ago
  But the page does show you the internals of what it does, it's just that it's done in a very high level, enough for the non-technical people who will most benefit from that page: "The trick is to compute passwords rather than generate and store random passwords. LessPass generates unique passwords for websites, email accounts, or anything else based on a master password and information you know." "It does not save your passwords in a database. It does not need to sync your devices together. " "The system uses a pure function, i.e. a function that given the same parameters will always give the same result. In our case, given a login, a master password, a site and options it will returns a unique password." Etc.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    I'm a technical person, and I thought this was a great and fast explanation to tell me what was going on. I don't need any more details than this and appreciated the brevity.
sixhobbits 10y ago
Well there are different levels of description here. First, I think I am pretty representative of the target audience for the main website (it's sad, but most non technical people still don't know what a password manager is or why they might want to use one). Second, there is a difference between "What it does" (A password manager that re-computes the same site-specific password on every use, meaning that no syncing of passwords is necessary) which you can still make pretty informative vs "Me telling you why you should use it" (The cliches I quoted). Even if the website was aimed at those with zero technical knowledge, it could still give more concrete detail on what it is and why you need it rather than the empty marketing phrases. The github repo should be where I go if I want to know what hashing libraries they're using, if their Math checks out, and who the contributors are. Not if I just want to know what it actually is (apart from "The best ever super duper password manager that you really need to download right now before tomorrow") and kind-of-how it works.
- TuringTest 10y ago
  > First, I think I am pretty representative of the target audience for the main website (it's sad, but most non technical people still don't know what a password manager is or why they might want to use one). Maybe they're trying to make a website for non technical people, in order to gain some traction among that audience? If developers keep pandering to the technical audience who already knows enough about the purpose of password lockers, you have a circular problem where the general audience never learns about them. And remember, marketing phrases exist because they work. If you don't know what a product is good for, the seller needs to state it in plain terms in order to convince the customers of how it could benefit them.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    Plain terms doesn't mean meanless terms. Having meaningless marketing buzzwords is not useful. You can explain things simply and clearly without resorting to vagueness.

appleflaxen 10y ago

respectfully disagree. "how it works" should show you the internals "what it does" is better description if you are just going to tell me the inputs and outputs.

TuringTest 10y ago
But the page does show you the internals of what it does, it's just that it's done in a very high level, enough for the non-technical people who will most benefit from that page: "The trick is to compute passwords rather than generate and store random passwords. LessPass generates unique passwords for websites, email accounts, or anything else based on a master password and information you know." "It does not save your passwords in a database. It does not need to sync your devices together. " "The system uses a pure function, i.e. a function that given the same parameters will always give the same result. In our case, given a login, a master password, a site and options it will returns a unique password." Etc.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  I'm a technical person, and I thought this was a great and fast explanation to tell me what was going on. I don't need any more details than this and appreciated the brevity.

sixhobbits 10y ago

Well there are different levels of description here. First, I think I am pretty representative of the target audience for the main website (it's sad, but most non technical people still don't know what a password manager is or why they might want to use one). Second, there is a difference between "What it does" (A password manager that re-computes the same site-specific password on every use, meaning that no syncing of passwords is necessary) which you can still make pretty informative vs "Me telling you why you should use it" (The cliches I quoted). Even if the website was aimed at those with zero technical knowledge, it could still give more concrete detail on what it is and why you need it rather than the empty marketing phrases. The github repo should be where I go if I want to know what hashing libraries they're using, if their Math checks out, and who the contributors are. Not if I just want to know what it actually is (apart from "The best ever super duper password manager that you really need to download right now before tomorrow") and kind-of-how it works.

TuringTest 10y ago
> First, I think I am pretty representative of the target audience for the main website (it's sad, but most non technical people still don't know what a password manager is or why they might want to use one). Maybe they're trying to make a website for non technical people, in order to gain some traction among that audience? If developers keep pandering to the technical audience who already knows enough about the purpose of password lockers, you have a circular problem where the general audience never learns about them. And remember, marketing phrases exist because they work. If you don't know what a product is good for, the seller needs to state it in plain terms in order to convince the customers of how it could benefit them.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Plain terms doesn't mean meanless terms. Having meaningless marketing buzzwords is not useful. You can explain things simply and clearly without resorting to vagueness.