DEV Community: Arsala Khan

Grey Software's Founding Story

Arsala Khan — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 21:58:23 +0000

Ever since I can remember, adults in any given room would discuss the issues plaguing humanity with hopeless and
defeated commentary. This commentary would often end with a message that nobody could really disagree with:

Things won't change until we have better education for everybody!

Better education, better health care, better infrastructure, we needed better everything.

But very few people have the skills, resources, or stamina needed to build a better world while the current world is
hostile and unforgiving.

In the world I grew up in, getting out was the golden ticket, not staying and fixing things.

From my family members wanting to escape the realities of Pakistani life to the people at the frontier of science and
technology trying to escape the human condition on Earth, the message I grew up with was to survive while you can and
escape if you can!

My preferred escape was into the world of video games, entertainment, and information. By the end of high school in
Pakistan, I believed I was incompetent because of my two C and two D grade results in the A-Level exams. The systems
that governed my life had devastated my self-esteem and amplified my concern for the future.

That was when my family's golden ticket came in. We were accepted into Canada as permanent residents.

In Canada, I experienced a society with evolved laws, advanced technology, and a higher standard of living. It was
somewhere I had the safety to travel and the freedom to earn a dignified living as a high-schooler.

Here, I repeated 12th grade in a healthier environment which allowed me to awaken the curious learner within me that had been put to sleep by factory schooling.

After doing well in high school, I was accepted into UofT Mississauaga's Computer Science program, where I explored my
passion for software and technology.

At this time, my vision didn't extend beyond getting a decent salary as a video game engineer working from wherever I
wanted in the world. However, since I found myself in such an exciting technological age, I couldn't help but dream
bigger.

People my age worldwide were starting impactful businesses and working for the world’s most advanced technology
companies. A close friend of mine got an internship at Microsoft, which made getting an internship at Google a more
viable reality.

Why did I want to work for Google?

Well, the work Google was doing with the web, Android OS, and the Next Billion Users initiative was leveling the playing
field for people worldwide. I imagined myself collaborating on complex problems to help my people lead more peaceful and
prosperous lives.

During my second year, my application to Google didn't make it past their resume screening around, so I vowed to apply
the following year with more substantial engineering experience.

The summer before I applied again, I challenged myself to create and publish a math practice app. Designing and
engineering the app was one of the most transformative ventures of my life because it allowed me to appreciate the
complexity behind a successful app and develop the persistence needed to create it.

The app never really took off past about 300 users, but it was enough to get me past the resume screening process. After
three challenging technical interviews followed by an excruciatingly long host matching phase, I was ecstatic after
Google confirmed my position.

Arsala Bangash - SETI Intern at Google Cloud Sunnyvale

During orientation, I was awe-struck. Sometimes I couldn't believe it was real. I was fascinated by the infrastructure
and atmosphere around me, and I aimed to make the most of this experience.

I genuinely appreciated how much effort Google put into their interns' professional development, but I started to get an
uneasy feeling as the weeks went by.

Many experiences formed this feeling, but three, in particular, allowed the truth to really dawn upon me:

The legal workshop during my intern orientation week
The Google-Pentagon AI Scandal
The Censored Google for China Scandal

Google was not fundamentally oriented towards helping humanity in the way that its marketing campaigns claimed.

Google was a corporation mandated to maximize its shareholder value and cater to the interests of powerful global
forces.

Still, life went on, and I had a great summer where I managed to grow professionally, form memories with other Googlers,
and secure an internship at Vida Health for the coming semester.

Things were going fine…until they weren't.

It was around November 2018 when the reality of death truly dawned on me.

I found blood after I went to the bathroom one day, and I was thrust into the world of managing chronic illness.

During times of isolation and uncertainty, I reflected on my life and the path I was walking.

I felt something deeply wrong… like I had forgotten what was important in life.

To love and nurture your family.
To work towards more peace and prosperity for the future generations of life.
To create technology for sustainable human ecology.
To educate the future generations about the world they were going to inherit.

I was in a system that was molding me to serve its purposes.

I felt like there was a lack of a greater perspective on how our human societies were conducting themselves.

Was I unconsciously bending myself to fit in a soulless system?

No more!

I vowed to orient myself towards serving humanity.

To the degree that I was able, I would stand up to the systems that live by the suffering of people everywhere.

At the same time, my mind was consumed by the idea that life was full of polarities.

Progressivism and conservatism.

Introversion and extroversion.

Idealism and pragmatism.

Black and White.

Without managing these polarities, we risked creating an increasingly divided world with less understanding and more
suffering.

To be Grey is to seek balance and harmony between the polarities in life.

Our blessing as conscious reasoning beings was our ability to be Grey.

Were the institutions I was serving approaching their polarities in a healthy way?

Were tech companies oriented towards providing meaningful value to the people they serve or making money for their
owners and shareholders?

Suppose that the companies creating software products and services for us are soulless, profit-maximizing machines at
their legal core. In that case, it's no surprise that they exploited and manipulated the very people they were created
to serve.

You can read more about the Grey Software philosophy here.

At the time, I had no definitive plans for starting a software company oriented towards the Grey. I had to be patient
and allow this idea to grow gradually.

During the summer of 2019, I returned to Google to intern on the open-source Android Studio project.

I was disillusioned with the narrative Google had painted in my previous internship, but I still had hope.

The Android OS provided compact computing power at a great price point to the masses, and it was an honor for me to work
on the same floor as some of the Android people I had watched on Google's IO conference Youtube videos.

I felt that life had set the stage for me to have an impactful summer at the Bellevue office.

I came in with lots of energy and enthusiasm, working passionately on my project and my health. I had accepted that
there might be scandals and frustrations this time around, but I was determined.

Near the end of the internship, I still had faith despite witnessing:

Mandatory employee training exercises that were out-of-touch with reality
More foul play by Google's products such as Youtube
The Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower

I had faith because, amid this chaos, I believed that Google was still capable of being a force for good in this world.
I knew that the people I worked with were kind-hearted and dedicated, so I wanted to leave them with an inspiring
message to remind them of their positive impact on people worldwide.

This was the message that I hoped to convey during my final presentation, and it was the message that I couldn't get to
because our engineering team manager stopped my presentation before I had the chance to finish.

I wanted to paint a truthful picture of my internship, which is why I spoke about how Google's scandals affected me in
addition to showcasing my project.

When I showed a slide containing the image above from
a video exposing the Youtube trending algorithm's unfairness, the
engineering manager stopped my presentation, claiming I violated Google's code of conduct.

I remember standing with trembling knees and a tight throat as I asked for confirmation.

"Am I violating the code of conduct?"

"Yes."

I left the presentation room anxious about the future consequences of what I had just done, but my internship host
helped calm me down and navigated the Google code of conduct document with me. We found one ambiguously written clause
that encouraged Googlers to leave contentious political matters outside of the workplace.

When I left the office that day, I remember being heartbroken at the state of an institution I had genuinely fallen in
love with. I was grateful to have been able to confide in my brother and some fellow interns about how I was feeling,
and I was fortunate to have a meaningful conversation the following day.

On my last day at Google, I had a one-on-one meeting with my team manager (not the same manager who stopped my
presentation), who candidly explained the realities of the situation to me.

Paraphrased from my manager:

"Arsala, I have a family to raise in Seattle. Living here and ensuring that my kids get the best life is expensive, and
I work here because it's one of the best jobs available. For Google to do what it does at the scale it exists, they need
to foster a neutral environment where people with differing world views can work together. You're young, and you have
energy…maybe you would find it more meaningful to work at a not-for-profit."

That fall, after my Google internship, I returned to Mississauga to complete my education at UTM.

I had learned a lot during the 16-month internship break I had taken from school, and I was grateful that several
students in the senior class were as passionate as I was about helping the incoming students walk more prosperous paths.

We did our best that year and came away with a massive victory for the student community.

Our university department agreed to form the CSSC (Computer science student society), staffed with three paid part-time
students and a supervisor from the department. This initiative was mandated to serve, support, and guide CS students.

During the academic year, I tried helping as many students as I could to bring their software ideas to life through
mentorship and resources. As a byproduct, some of Grey Software's foundations were formed. By this time, I was openly
using the name and encouraging students to go beyond their department-constructed curriculums and explore the world of
open-source software development.

As the school year ended strangely after the world was turned upside down by COVID19, I pondered whether I could start
building the Grey Software organization.

I didn't have a huge funding source or the entire skillset needed to pull this venture, but I knew the internet had the
answers I was looking for.

I had people tell me I was making a financially irresponsible move by not working for the kinds of companies that would
hire me, but I knew the tech industry would still be around if I decided to jump back in.

I didn't even have a clear business plan.

What I had was an exhilarating albeit blurry vision of a world where anyone learning software could collaborate with
professionals to create useful products and services with the latest tech.

I knew how fortunate I was to have had the opportunity to study at UTM and intern at Google and Vida. I also knew how
happy it would make me to see every honest, determined student around the world have a fair shot at creating a better
future for themselves through technology.

Never in the history of the world did we have an event like COVID spike an exponential rise in distributed, remote
solutions.

My gut told me it was the right time to start building Grey Software full-time.

Armed with an exciting vision and the determination to make it a reality, I joined the Pioneer global startup
tournament.

An Intro To Git

Arsala Khan — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 19:43:01 +0000

Git

Git is a free and open-source distributed version control system used by the vast majority of software development companies.

Git is commonly used for both open source and commercial software development, with significant benefits for individuals, teams, and businesses:

Git lets developers see the entire timeline of their changes, decisions, and progression of any project in one place.
Developers can work concurrently in any time zone while maintaining source code integrity.
Teams using a Git platform such as Github or Gitlab can break down communication barriers between teams and keep them focused on doing their best work.

At Grey Software, we use both Github and Gitlab! Why? We primarily use Gitlab for development and collaboration because we found it easier to remotely collaborate on multiple projects across an organization compared to Github. We still use GitHub because of its vast community, classroom platform, and sponsorships program!

Git Guides

An Intro to Version Control

Arsala Khan — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 20:02:19 +0000

What is a Version Control System (VCS)?

A VCS tracks the history of changes as people and teams collaborate on projects together.

As the project evolves, teams can run tests, fix bugs, and contribute new code with the confidence that they can recover any version.

Developers can review the project's history to find out:

What changes were made
Who made the changes
When were the changes made
Why were changes needed

Collaboration

A VCS allows multiple people to work on the same set of files in structured harmony.

Messaging your teammates about which file you're changing and telling them to keep their fingers off is not the optimal workflow.

Neither is storing .zip snapshots of your code on a shared online drive.

With a VCS, team members can work on any project file on their local version and merge their changes into a shared version.

The latest version of a file or the whole project is always in a shared location managed by the VCS.

Storing Versions

Saving a version of your project after making changes is an essential habit.

But without a VCS, this becomes tedious and confusing very quickly.

How much do we save?
Only the changed files or the complete project?
How do we name these versions?

If you're a very organized person, you might be able to stick to a coherent naming system.

How can we know exactly what files changed in these versions? It is problematic to expect humans to carefully document each change consistently.

A version control system acknowledges that there is only one project.

Therefore, there's only one version on your disk that you're currently working on.

All the past versions and variants of your project are available through the VCS.

Restoring Previous Versions

Being able to restore older versions of a file or the whole project means you can't mess up!

If the changes you make prove to be garbage, you can undo them with a few commands. Knowing this should make you more relaxed when working on a project.

Understanding What Happened

Every time you save a new version of your project, your VCS requires you to briefly describe what was changed to help you understand how your project evolved between versions.

You can see also see what file contents were changed.

Backup

A distributed VCS like Git can also act as a backup.

Every team member has a repository of the project on their disk with its entire version history.

All you need to recover your entire project is one copy of the git repository.

What is Distributed Version control System

A distributed version control system (DVCS) is a type of version control where the complete codebase — including its full version history — is mirrored on every developer's computer.

Which VCS?

Which VCS do we use in practice? At Grey Software, we use Git, like the overwhelmingly vast majority of software development companies.

Next up: Git

How do software developers from different parts of the world collaborate?

Arsala Khan — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 12:05:36 +0000

When you're working with software developers from around the world on a project, you need to know:

What changes were made since your last collaboration
Who made those changes
When were those changes made
Why were those changes needed

Messaging your teammates about which file you're changing and telling them to keep their fingers off is not the optimal workflow. Neither is storing .zip snapshots of your code on a shared online drive.

To get around this issue, we use a version control system (or a VCS).

A VCS allows multiple people to work on the same set of files in structured harmony.

Team members can work on any project file on their local version and merge their changes into a shared version.

The latest version of a file or the whole project is always in a shared location managed by the VCS.

Learn More about Version Control Systems: https://learn.grey.software/concepts/version-control

Introducing Grey Software

Arsala Khan — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 18:36:33 +0000

Hi Dev Community 👋!

Since May 2020, I've been building Grey Software!

We are a not-for-profit organization registered in Canada 🇨🇦 that makes open-source products with students worldwide and publishes educational content along the way.

Founding Story

Today, I published our founding story!

I wrote about why I chose not to return to Google or UTM (University of Toronto Mississauga), and instead create an organization that would help educate the next generation of software creators.

Investor Pitch

We're seeking $50k+ in non-equity-dilutive funding from Angel Investors and Venture Capital Firms to help us continue our mission!

Philosophy

What does it mean for software to be Grey?

We define Grey Software as software you can trust, love, and learn from.

Hacktoberfest

We'll be opening back up our discord server soon to welcome Hacktoberfest contributors and scout contributors we'd like to contract for development work! Stay tuned 😃

Credits and Gratitude

Our Team & Sponsors

I'm sincerely grateful to our team members and sponsors who have made it possible for us to have the impact we've had so far.

The Open Source Ecosystem

The software world as we know it stands upon the foundations laid down by the open source world.

We are where we are because of the time, energy, and passion of contributors around the world.

We are sincerely grateful for our access to tools that help us create better software.

We made an evolved News Feed Eradicator...now in Beta!

Arsala Khan — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 10:57:29 +0000

Hi Dev Community!

Throughout the summer, @paul_designs, @avi_dave, and I were creating Grey Software's first public product: Focused Browsing. We would love for you to try it out!

Product Page
Get It on Chrome
Get It on Firefox

Like 200,000 other people, we used News Feed Eradicator (NFE) to control the detrimental effects of consuming feeds.

We loved the extension, but we had a few problems with it.

It was tedious to toggle between focused and unfocused modes. You had to open the extension's settings page, and click on the website that you want to enable/disable.
The codebase had gained bloat and complexity over the years. Things like using 2 Redux stores made it difficult to reason about the program flow and we knew that adding new functionality like keyboard shortcuts and blocking promoted posts would be tricky.

Our extension recently went into Beta and we're eager to hear everyone's feedback and find any edge cases we haven't covered. Thank You!