My first encounter with Silverlight

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I joined TCS on November 2008 as a Fresher. We had to undergo two months ‘Initial Learning Program’ (ILP) training. The phase I of my ILP (basic training) was at Trivandrum and the second phase (technology training) was at Pune on Java/J2EE. The phase I of my ILP was awesome, had never been before to Kerala. It is really ‘God’s own country’ and I thanks TCS for conducting my first phase of my training at Trivandrum :-). After completion of first phase of training, we had 15 days time [paid holiday :-)] to join the base branch (Pune) for second phase of training. The second phase of training was also good. After successfully completing both the phases of ILP, we were now ready to join the project. My mind was flooded with thoughts like will I get a project (as it was recession time), will I get a billable project [I joined as a Fresher :-)], will my friends also get the same project etc. Finally, after waiting for a period of 7 days [yes, I know 7days of bench period is very less and that too at the time of recession it’s negligible, but for a ‘Fresher’ it’s considerable period ;-) ] I got a call for a project [and new thoughts started to flood my mind :-) ]. I was eager to hear about the project, my role in the project etc. Soon there was an end to my eagerness, when I heard that there is one project on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), one on IBM DB2 and one on Microsoft Silverlight. We had a choice to select our project. I was confused on which project should I choose as there was no project on Java/J2EE on which I was trained and If I don’t select any project then I had to be on bench for indefinite time [I was hearing all this technologies for the first time MOSS, Silverlight and DB2 :-) ]. We were given an overview of each project and our role in the project and one day’s time to give our choice. Therefore, I had just one day to select my technology from MOSS, Silverlight and DB2. I had discussion with my senior’s, my college professor’s and even with my sister. The conclusion of all the discussion was to go for MOSS but my heart was saying to go for Silverlight. I do not know why I was attracted towards Silverlight and I end up giving my name for the Silverlight project. After I gave my name for the project, I was regretting a lot why I opted for Silverlight when everyone had suggested me MOSS. Soon this regression ended when I meet my supervisor Harikumar Pillai [I did not meet him actually, as he was working in TCS-Mumbai office, so we had a conversation over call] and my team. Along with me were Aarti, Charika and Vidit as my colleagues and Harikumar as our supervisor, in the Silverlight project. We called our team as RIA team. This is how I got encountered and started with Silverlight.

I feel happy when I think about those days when I used to regret for not choosing MOSS and going for what my heart said.