After reading that news article, I don't know what which I found more amusing: that the resulting ad hoc produced system sounds suspiciously like an amalgamation of open source software, or that MAS, as the national airlines, is still using a paper-based system for maintenance management!!! No wonder the national carrier has always been plagued by financial issues.
I just found it a little ridiculous that the reporter would choose to use a phrase like "design a database solution that rivals commercial systems". If that were true, don't companies around the world feel stupid to have bought all those commercial systems? And just to be helpful to many would-be programmers, try searching for inventory-related management software on Sourceforge.net. You'll be surprised. And want to manage a database? Try phpMyAdmin. Either the reporter or the subject of the feature article had been exaggerating when mentioning "zero knowledge in programming". He studied in APIIT, so come on, no knowledge at all? What exactly do they teach in an information technology-related institute of education? Of course, I'm not trying to dumb down the accomplishments of that MAS employee and his team, it is certainly a strong showing of their dedication and passion for improving their job environment. I'm just a little miffed at the exaggerations of the article.
And for MAS itself? I'm stumped as to how their management had managed to go that many years without even hitting upon the thought that maybe, just maybe, an IT solution would help reduce their cost. That feature article certainly opened up my eyes as to why MAS kept reporting losses - they seem not to have improved with the times. It's rather sad that it had fallen on an engineer of the company to take it upon himself to improve the company's competitiveness. I hope that same management would reward the man and his team handsomely for their dedication and freelance work, rather than just reap the profits. I suppose MAS is happy to know that they hired a group of people willing to sacrifice for their company without expecting remuneration.
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