So you want to know about me?

Many people know Messenger Plus! nowadays and, because my graphic designer added a "by Patchou" subtitle in one of the logos a few years ago, many people also know the name of its developers. "Patchou" is essentially the nickname that I, the guy who's been in charge of Messenger Plus! since day 1, have been using since I started going on the internet. I am the sole developer of the project, I've always enjoyed working on it and the feeling is the same today than it was 7 years ago.

I was born in France and I now live my life in Canada. As you may have noticed, English is not my primary language either but I'm doing the best I can (for a French guy that is). In the past years, I've spent most of my time writing code for Messenger Plus! and managing all aspects of the project in collaboration with some great people who've given a lot of their own time to maintain its success. I don't like talking about myself a lot, I prefer to let people judge me through my work, that's also why I don't have a blog and don't plan on having one any time soon. Also, in case you'd be wondering, the cute girl on the right side of this text is Osaka, a character from one of the best anime series of all time called Azumanga Daioh. I'm very much into Japanese culture and like many software developers, I've seen every Star Trek episode at least 3 times.

Although I love my job very much, the one thing that tends to bug me is the amount of false information spread over the years about Messenger Plus! and sometimes, about myself. We often hear about not believing everything we read and I can tell you that working on this software made that very clear to me. If a blatant lie gets on a web site and starts being copied over and over again, it can rapidly become a universally accepted truth. The facts don't matter anymore and instead of verifying what's behind the story (which, in the case of a software like Messenger Plus!, can be summed-up in installing it), many people will just refer one of the many sites that referred to another site that referred to another site so they just "can't be wrong". Never accept anything you read for a fact, always keep a little question mark in the back of your head and whenever possible, check the story for yourself, especially if you plan on talking about it afterwards. The web is full of stories like this and most of them are perpetuated by people who read a post on their favourite news site/forum, repeat it in their own name, with their own words, and give the impression (voluntarily or not) that they are part of the references supporting the story.

Keep your minds open and thank you for reading this little presentation of myself :).

Patchou