Ask Paul: February 24 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We sold our house and are freaking out, so let’s kick off this weekend a bit early with another great round of reader questions.

History books

j5 asks:

Paul I think I’ve read a few times on the site that you’re a big history buff, maybe even WWII. What are some of your favorite history books? Do you have a period of history that you really enjoy reading about? Or some that really left an impact on you? What history books are you reading right now?

Yes. World War II in particular, for sure.

Ah boy. This could be a big list so I will look at straight-up history and not things like true crime, memoirs/biographies, sports history, personal computing history, auto history, historical fiction, and so on. There are still too many to choose from. This is an incomplete list of what I can recommend based solely on my Kindle library.

World War I

• Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Sir Max Hastings
• World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone

World War II

• Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose
• The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich Book 1) by Richard J. Evans
• The Third Reich at War: 1939-1945 (The History of the Third Reich Book 3) by Richard J. Evans
• The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
• Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
• The Second World War by Antony Beevor
• Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor
• The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts
• Year Zero: A History of 1945 (ALA Notable Books for Adults) by Ian Buruma
• Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955 by Harald Jähner
• Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945 by Volker Ullrich
• Paris After the Liberation 1944-1949: Revised Edition by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper

Spycraft

• Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed by Sandra V. Grimes

Modern era

• Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward

Paris

• The Golden Moments of Paris: A Guide to the Paris of the 1920s by John Baxter
• The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• Chronicles of Old Paris by John Baxter

Vietnam

• Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
• Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings

Mexico

• Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico by T. R. Fehrenbach

There’s a lot missing there. I recall one Vietnam War history book that I really enjoyed and read at least three times, but I can’t find it. I’ve read almost everything by Bob Woodward over the years. I can recommend anything by Antony Beever and Max Hastings, basically. Also Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough. Also, Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, and Hue 1965 are all great). (And no, I never read The History of the Third Reich Book 2, which was about the Third Reich in power.) I know I’m missing a lot here.

If you were going to read one full-on book about World War II, I recommend The Second World War by Antony Beevor and Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.

I’ve always been drawn to American history, the Revolutionary War period. So much that read, learn about, the nuisances, and stories about people. So much that you’re not taught in high school and even college, unless you major in history and probably even then. My favorite book of about that time is Adams by David McCullough. A not so great father, and full of himself. But man I wish I could have just a 1/3 of his speaking and writing abilities and courage to stick to what you believe. I was very sad when McCullough died. I’ve read all his books except for the giant tome Truman and his book about the Brooklyn Bridge, The Great Bridge. I’ve so many other favorite books and authors from this time period.

Yes. Can second your support of McCullough. I have read Adams, but it’s not in my Kindle library somehow. And many of his other books. Incredible.

Now the book that really had a profound impact on me is Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning. One of my friends that’s a big WWII buff and book nerd like me. We can talk about this book for days. It took me a while to get through the book because when I read it my kids were just toddlers. I’d get to choked up reading some parts, put the book down and just think about how fortunate I am to live in the time period I do.

Interesting, I’ve not read that one but I just purchased it on Audible. I’m not sure which of these had the most impact per se but I explored things like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and World War I specifically because I felt like I didn’t understand them at all (especially Korea and WWII). Band of Brothers is obviously an incredible story (and TV series), and I think the most poignant thing about that is that they were preparing to invade Japan when they finished up in Germany, only to wake up one day to the news of an atomic bomb. For all these guys went through, they didn’t realize they were done.

There’s so much to discuss when it comes to books/reading. Even just the history/non-fiction stuff is a huge topic. Or set of topics.

C#, .NET, and the future

MikaelKoskinen asks:

I’ve been enjoying .NET & C# for the last 20 years or so and still use that combination for most of my work days. Lately tought, I’ve been pondering the future of .NET and Visual Studio, among other things. When Microsoft’s main platform was Windows, they had every incentive to create excellent developer tools. However, now that their primary focus is on Azure, I wonder if they have lost the primary motivation to drive the development of these tools forward. From Microsoft’s perspective, I don’t think it matters whether their customers use Go, Python, or .NET in Azure, as the generated revenue is still the same.

So, that’s true to some degree, but Microsoft also actively evolves .NET on a regular (and predictable) basis, and it underwent an incredible migration from a proprietary, Windows-only set of technologies into its current form as an open-source and cross-platform set of technologies over the past several years. They continue to evolve C# and F# (and VB, sort of). And they are expanding what developers can do with .NET to include Blazor (web), .NET MAUI (cross-platform mobile apps) and even Windows (Windows App SDK). I feel like .NET is more important than ever, from a developer perspective, and that it survived what happened with Windows and has even flourished in that wake is rather incredible.

The way I look at this is that anyone who has invested time and effort learning .NET and C#—like you—is set for life. You may not be doing exactly what you were doing when Windows was everything and WPF was the latest application framework or whatever. But your opportunities have expanded.

The issue, of course, is whether you want that. In a general sense, I’m still far more interested in Windows than I am in mobile, the web, or (God help me) Azure/cloud computing. And that’s true from a software development perspective as well. But if you want to continue using your skills and experience, .NET can take you to entirely new places today. And that’s exciting, really.

You could also make the argument that whatever time/effort you undertook is a solid background if you decide to make some change. If you want to move to (non-.NET) web technologies like JavaScript, node/js, React, or whatever else, you’re in a good place. If you want to move to (non-.NET) mobile development, whether it’s platform-specific (Swift/Kotlin) or cross-platform (Flutter, etc.), you’re likewise coming from a good place. It wasn’t time wasted and if Microsoft has moved on in whatever way, it’s kind of an open field for those who invested in .NET.

So, why does Microsoft continue to develop their own programming languages, frameworks, and IDEs, rather than just focusing on ensuring that third-party developer tools run smoothly on Azure? I know this is a negative line of of thought but the only reason that comes to mind is that Microsoft’s own development tools can serve as a means of enticing developers to use Azure more frequently. Similar to how Microsoft’s Windows and Edge browsers are used to steer users towards Bing, MSN, and other Microsoft services.

Microsoft is still, at heart, an organization of developers and engineers, and I think we can see in the .NET that same thing we see in Azure and Microsoft 365 where the firm has pragmatically decided that the right approach is to meet its customers where they are. So you see the cross-platform/web/cloud prominence in new .NET technologies today, and the right way to view that as a developer is that Microsoft is expanding your opportunities. The world is changing but you don’t have to be left behind. You see that in Visual Studio Code, which is this sort of new thing compared to a monolithic IDE like traditional Visual Studio, though both are still improving all the time. And you see it in the languages, the IDEs and SDKs, and so on.

And whatever anyone thinks of Microsoft and the developer space, Visual Studio Code has been incredibly successful in the open-source/Linux part of the world. This is an audience that knee-jerk wants to dismiss Microsoft, but they have embraced VSC. And on the Microsoft stack side, those who stick with .NET still have incredible and modern tools and tech to use.

What are your thoughts on this?

This is interesting timing. Just last night, I spent about three hours doing programming JavaScript coding challenges just to see how well I could adapt to that. I’m going to write about this soon—this particular service offers multiple language support, including C#—but I was thinking about my own drifting interests and how what I think about/care about/experiment with in software development parallels my broader interests in personal technology. That is, I’ve always had a strong Windows focus and still very much prefer it. But I have also spent considerable amounts of time exploring macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS. On the developer side, I’ve always stuck with the Microsoft stack and in recent years finally learned all the .NET stuff I missed out on originally. But I’ve also explored things like Objective C and Swift, Java and Kotlin and Jetpack, Flutter, React, and on and on.

I think this is healthy. And while the programming stuff is very much in the enthusiast/amateur area for me and a career for you, it’s still healthy to always be learning. If you go down some path—I’ll make something up, like web development with React—and ultimately decide this isn’t for you, at least you know. It’s always good to know that. In my case, my time spent in non-Windows OSes has confirmed that I’m in the right place (though Microsoft is doing everything it can with Windows 11 to dissuade me from that). And this is a broader thing. My wife and I do this when we travel, wondering if wherever we are is a place we might want to live. If not, fine, we can still enjoy the trip. If maybe, we will come back. Sometimes again and again. It’s just the way to know for sure.

I hope this makes sense. The world has moved on from Windows for sure, but I feel like Microsoft offers developers a nice mix of in-house and cross-platform solutions that are mostly best-in-class and desirable no matter which direction you prefer. (And seriously, have you used Apple’s or Google’s environments? God help those people.)

Windows 11

JustMe asks:

I will apologize ahead of time, as this is as much me venting as it is questions.

🙂 Hey, I do that all the time. No need to apologize. We’re in the same dubiously constructed boat.

Been going through your Windows 11 guide again recently as I have recently acquired a new laptop which came pre-installed with Windows 11 Home.  As this machine will be my daily driver, I set about going through the OS and setting it up to my liking.  As I was tweaking I did try to explore the OS as Microsoft envisioned.  I still had an old Windows 8 Pro license laying around, and that allowed me to upgrade to Win 11 Pro.  I’ve run Windows 11 in VMs off and on for ages, and set up/troubleshooted (troubleshot?) machines for friends, family, and colleagues – but this is my first device running Win 11 on bare metal that would be used by me on any regular basis.

My impressions:

Microsoft still has a Movies and TV/Film app?  Does anyone use it?  Who buys/rents media from Microsoft?

A couple of points about this app.

Coincidentally, I just “wrote” this chapter for the Windows 11 book. Meaning, I took the chapter from the Windows 10 book and adapted it as needed. That’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because it’s a small part of a big swath of Windows 11 that has not been updated in the slightest since Windows 10. And while it needs to be in the book, it’s not super-important.

As part of a separate series of explorations into things like WinUI and the Windows App SDK (semi-related to the question above), I was researching the things that came before those things, if you will, and it occurred to me that each of the recent Windows versions—8, 10, and 11—has had its own style and that Microsoft adapted its key apps to match and promote those styles. But because Windows is such an archeological dig of new and old UIs, you can see remnants of all three in Windows 11. Movies & TV is an example of what was considered a “good” Windows 10 app. It looks out of place in Windows 11, however. Media Player, which is arguably even more pointless, is an example of a “good” Windows 11. So today, that looks sort of modern, and Movies & TV does not.

(Media Player is obviously the successor to Groove Music, which was itself the successor to Xbox Music, an app that debuted in Windows 8. But the navigational style it uses is now formally a modern Windows 11 design that Microsoft promotes to developers. Mail and Calendar are other examples of vestigial older UIs that date back in some cases in Windows 8.)

So, what’s the point?

Groove Music came about because Microsoft was still trying to push forward with a subscription music service offering that dates back to 2006 and Zune. Movies & TV came about because Microsoft was/is still pushing a movie/TV show purchase/rental service that I believe to be superfluous today. But because Groove Music was only about music, Movies & TV also provided a then-modern UI for accessing local video tiles in addition to purchased content.

With Media Player, Microsoft has added local video playback too. So that feature in Movies & TV, which is out of date from a UI perspective, is now superfluous and will likely be removed. Or, Movies & TV will simply disappear. Which is what should happen. It’s pointless. The one caveat being that some people have purchased content from Microsoft and what happens to them? A few options: Media Player could be adapted to always play that content, or Microsoft could partner with another provider to move that content elsewhere for customers. Or maybe it keeps going for some reason and Movies & TV is updated.

Who in their right mind thinks this OS is a good experience without an awful lot of tweaking?  I use Brave and Firefox as my primary browsers, and lost track of the number of times Edge and Bing popped up because I was exploring settings and clicked what I thought was a local link only to be taken to the web – the way Microsoft wants me to be taken.  I have a perpetual license for Office 2016.  It does what I need.  I do not need a pop-up extolling the virtues of Microsoft 365 when I’ve already got Office installed.  Before I uninstalled Teams, I was poking around and managed to somehow get a pop-up again extolling the virtues of Word (I think – might have been Excel) sharing in Teams.  I wasnt even on a call – but if that had happened while I was in a work meeting, it would drive me nuts.  Settings are way too click-heavy (by which I mean buried) in this OS.  Who thinks Search Highlights is a good idea?  If I am trying to get work done, thats the LAST thing I want given how easy it is to mis-click (and yes, I know it can be turned off –  as I mentioned I was trying to explore the OS as Microsoft envisions it while I was tweaking it.  I was trying to give Microsoft a fair shake.)  I dont need or want Microsofts recommendations or suggestions.  I found myself getting frustrated, as the OS just seemed to keep getting in my way.  In my opinion, getting in the users way is the last thing an OS should be doing.

So, I agree with you. There’s a weird thing going on in Windows 11 where Microsoft’s corporate needs are stomping all over the user experience in ways that weren’t true in previous versions. Even something as simple as “default apps” is basically gone now, except for web browsers where, as you point out, it’s been undermined by special use cases (Widgets, Start search, etc.) where Edge launches no matter what. The list of things that have been hobbled like this is long.

Does this matter to normal users? Maybe not. Not yet, anyway. But the creeping enshittification of Windows becomes more problematic every day.

There is much more, but all of it leads me to tell you I really disliked the experience.  And yes, many (not all) of the behaviours I saw can be mitigated all or in part – we do at least still have that.  But I do have to ask – what is it about Windows 11 people do like?  I cannot imagine the…insanity?…of what Windows might become as ChatGPT gets more integrated.

That’s the Windows 12 marketing tagline! 🙂

To my quick point about normal users above, my wife and a good friend both upgraded to Windows 11 in recent months. And in both cases, I waited a few weeks and then asked them what they thought. And in both cases, there was a little bit of confusion, as if my asking this question didn’t make sense. And that is because neither thought anything of it. At all.

Pressing, I asked both if they thought the new UI was prettier or nicer in some way (I do). Nope. Didn’t care. Any issues? Nope. Nothing. They just didn’t care.

So maybe our being too far down the Windows rabbit hole is amplifying issues that are, to date, not a big deal to the mainstream audience. I do kind of worry about this type of thing, I want to believe that if I start ranting about something that there’s a good reason for it and that I’m in the “right,” whatever that means. But … I don’t know.

Anyway, in the end, I ended up slicking the box.  It now dual boots – it has a small Windows 10 Pro partition for those things I really need in Windows, with the primary partition running Fedora 37.  Perhaps I should be thanking Microsoft for making me see that I can quite happily compute in a world where Windows is my secondary OS?

I hope that wasn’t their intent. But I do worry that Microsoft is pushing a small but influential audience of technical users away in the insane drive to more profits, and that they don’t understand the impact this will have when mainstream users turn to those people when it’s time to upgrade. I feel like this is a ticking time bomb.

Or, again, maybe I’m making too much of this.

ChatGPT and … Skype?

JustMe also asks:

Why would Microsoft add BingAI to Skype (as Laurent reported)?  Skype?

I wondered the same. But I still use Skype because a couple of close friends still use Skype, and I was just prompted to use this. And it’s not what I expected: Skype offers up a Bing item that you can chat with. “Bing in Skype can help you get answers, creative ideas, or summaries in chat, anytime,” it says. “Remember, this is a preview. AI can slip up, so always check the facts.” LOL. Yep, that’s what people do. Check the facts.

Anyway, it’s just another front-end to Bing AI, so I guess this is a low-impact way to get more people trying the service. (And maybe they can use this to pad the stats the next time they brag about how many people have used it.)

Anyway, to test it, I used the demo Microsoft did in the Bing AI introduction and asked for a good five-day itinerary for Mexico City. And it was kind of interesting, actually. It listed numerous obvious attractions, crediting only Bing.com as the source. And then it asked, “What kind of activities do you enjoy? Do you prefer art, history, nature, or something else?” Which is a pretty good way to handle this, though it never did break the thing done into days, as it did originally on the web.

I answered that with “history,” and then it did the five-day thing.

“I’m glad you like history,” it answered. “Mexico City has a rich and fascinating history that spans from ancient civilizations to modern times. Here are some suggestions for a five-day history itinerary (bing.com)…” There were options for five days, separated out, which you may think is impressive, but no one would want five days of history-focused sites only, right? It did follow up with “Do you have any questions about these places or activities?”

So… OK. That’s not horrible. It’s not a real conversation, which would be lost of a lot of people. And I guess I could have told it I like multiple things, not just history. It was polite, at least.

First trip to England

MichaelMDiv asks:

Booking my first international trip to England this year. Any tips for a novice? I will bring my phone and laptop, so I know I need a European SIM card and power adapter. Have you tried T-Mobile’s data pass when traveling internationally? Seems like a good option for those with locked phones. I have looked at some of Rick Steves stuff, but I am not sure I can live out of a carryon for two weeks.

When you say England, I’m not sure if you mean London, London with some side trips, or some form of car/train excursion around a lot of the country. But I’ve spent a lot of time in London and England—my father lived there for several years in the 1990s, which was why we visited the first time—and there’s a lot to see and explore.

I would still very much pay attention to Rick Steves when it comes to the sites you want to see, restaurants to eat at, etc. And while I personally always carry on and don’t know how you’re traveling, you can always do laundry if needed. Hotels do this for you, etc. Being more mobile is always a good thing. I recommend grabbing his London or Great Britain guidebooks and watching the most recent versions of his TV show episodes relevant to where you are going. And he has lots of other content on YouTube as well, including very good travel talks that are location-specific.

Technology-wise, you should be fine on T-Mobile assuming the data cap you have is OK (mine is 5 GB monthly internationally) and/or what you pay for additional data isn’t too steep. You will want UK power adapters (big, three-pronged things) and I recommend bringing one or more U.S. travel power strips so you can plug multiple devices into a single power receptacle (via one of those adapters).

Please do let me know where you are going and for how long.