With Messenger Plus! Live taking a new direction as Patchou expands his development team for Windows Live Messenger's most popular extension, we at Messenger Stuff thought we would take a more personal look into the man behind the code, Cyril Paciullo.

This is our second interview with Patchou, so you may want to listen to our first interview back in September 2006.


Could you tell us about your background? What degree did you study and at what university (if at all)?

For a first answer, that's gonna be disappointing :). When asked about this in French, I tend to say I have a "BAC minus 2". I left school when I was 17, the general scientific curriculum in France just did not interest me anymore. I was already spending more time reading about software development than I was studying. Luckily, I met a girl in Quebec, I moved to Canada and after a year of college, I started to work as a programmer, at the age of 18. Seeing where it brought me today, I'll never be able to thank my parents enough for letting me follow my own path so soon in my life.


What jobs have you had before you started developing Messenger Plus!?

I worked as a software developer and team leader for several companies in Montreal. My personal pet-projects (such as Messenger Plus!) also gave me the opportunity to work as a consultant for companies in the US. I have very good memories of my life as an employee, I found people in North America to be very easy to work with, nobody cares about your age, what you look like, etc, as long as you can do the job. Of course, that's my own experience, not everybody is so lucky, but the first thing you notice when coming from Europe is that your picture doesn't have to be stapled on your resume to help human resources do a first screening of potential candidates...


What is the most humbling moment you have had during your time developing Plus!?

You know, I think the real answer to this question can't be summed up with any given moment. When you're young and your software starts being used by so many people, it's easy to lose focus. The work itself taught me humility. That's the beauty of the internet: there's always somebody smarter than you, better than you, with brighter ideas, etc... you can't escape that fact when talking and working with so many people. Most of my testers aren't afraid to tell me that "this incredible idea I just had" just awfully sucks. If you don't deliver, people won't follow, I like the simplicity of that.


What originally attracted you to Messenger development?

I actually talked about that on my personal site recently (quick plug for patchou.com ;). I wanted to try my hand on some new technologies I had read about, and as MSN Messenger was the last thing I had installed on my computer, I thought it would be perfect to use it for my tests. I started creating and distributing patches for Messenger 3, and after a month or two, I decided to distribute the first version of Messenger Plus! on my Frontpage-template web site.


Where do you see Messenger in the next 5 years?

I wish I could be sure. There's so many things happening in the world of social networking nowadays. I even started to use Facebook more actively recently myself, after ignoring it for so long (I found it to be a good use of my time while my projects are compiling). From what I've seen in Messenger 2010, Microsoft has done a good job making sure Messenger keeps its appeal. At Yuna Software, we're also working on various other projects that will give more purpose to Messenger in the near future. One thing is sure: as everybody moves to online services, Messenger Plus! 5 will follow on the same path. There's no point fighting change, online tools is what most people expect nowadays and that's what they'll get from us.


What do you see yourself doing in 10 years from now?

Reading and playing all those games I bought and put on a shelf, waiting for the right moment to start them. Life goes by so fast, one day you're 20, the next day you're 40, with kids, and not enough stamina to play that latest Virtual Reality RPG that just came out on the PS5. I've always had fun with my work, I am an extremely lucky guy, but I'd like to have more free time for my hobbies. Let's sum-up by saying that the next companies I'll open will have to do without me installing Office for the accountant ;). I have many projects, there's just too many things I want to try. Ask me again in one or two years from now :).


What feature within Messenger Plus! are you most proud of any why?

Probably the most insignificant ones. It felt good when I was able to decode and re-encode UIB interface files in Messenger, a year ago. That's the kind of work that nobody really notices but that keeps the job interesting and motivating. There's always something to fix, improve or research to keep things working as they were before.


What other Messenger add-ons do you admire?

I've never really used any other add-on. That's always been part of my own policy of not copying features from others. If I don't install or read about another add-on, I'm sure I won't be tempted to copy parts of it, even unconsciously.


What is your relationship with Microsoft like, considering the issues you have had in the past?

I think it's good. The problems I've had in the past all had an explanation. I understand it can be difficult for a big company such as them to deal with a single guy like myself. People at Yuna Software are currently working actively to solidify our relationship with Microsoft and I'm pretty sure the situation can only get better. I didn't send them chocolate for Christmas this year though, but if anybody from Microsoft is reading this, know that no MVP = no chocolates. I'll reconsider if you do the same... life is full of tough choices.


What do you want from Windows Live Messenger 2010?

Me? No-thing. Nothing at all, keep the code as it was in Messenger 2009, don't modify anything that's used by Messenger Plus! and I'll be the happiest of developers this year. Seriously, I'm expecting as much social networking interoperability as possible in the next version. The only thing that was really missing in the core product was tabbed chatting and they apparently added it for the next version already (say bye to the same option in Messenger Plus!, hope it served you well all these years).


Do you have any interesting facts about yourself that the community may not know?

Facts about myself, there are plenty. Facts that are interesting, not that much... I always share parts of my life with people on the forum, and more recently on my blog. I can share something else very cool with you though, that I learnt recently on Mythbusters (a show on Discovery Channel). Did you know that you can construct a whole boat out of duck tape and a bunch of metal tubes? For a couple of hundred bucks, they were able to build a complete sailing boat, use it on the water with moderate wind for an hour, and the boat performed as well as a real one. You can even create a read full-size canon with that stuff. Pretty incredible.