a book by Dinis Cruz · first edition September 2018 · second edition in the making, dated October 2026
Generation Z Developers
Key concepts and ideas for the next generation of developers.
- Question everything
- Make fact based decisions
- Understand the history of tech
- Learn how to learn
- Understand what game is being played
- Develop intellectual curiosity
- Look under the hood
- Shake things up
The eight lines on the cover are what the book was for. They read more urgently now than in 2018, and the second edition keeps all eight: the manual for getting into development, and getting a job, now that everyone who can brief an agent is a developer.
Read the first edition here Paperback on Amazon Free to read on Leanpub
The first edition, where it lives
Released early and in public, the way the book told its readers to work: on Leanpub at 60% complete, as a paperback, and as Markdown in a Git repository. Those three are the record of v1.0.0, and this site shows that text exactly as released.
Gen Z Developers
139 pages · published 30 September 2018 · ISBN-10 1724194607 · 15.24 × 22.86 cm · one five-star review
amazon.co.uk → PDF and EPUB · LeanpubGeneration Z Developers
free to read online, suggested price $10 · 60% complete, last updated 8 October 2018 · 465 readers · 136 pages, 30,695 words
leanpub.com/generation-z → The source · GitHubBook_Generation_Z_Developer
138 Markdown files, 90 of them outlines · Creative Commons BY on the cover · feedback by GitHub issues · imported here as v1.0.0, frozen
github.com/DinisCruz →“Amazing read for anyone new to, or wanting to get into programming. Brilliant background primer, not just for Gen Z.”Kevin Fielder, on the Amazon listing
“This book teaches young developers how to become a developer. I wish I had this type of book when I started my career.”Matt Parsons, on the Amazon listing
The second edition, in the making
The repository holds the official versions; the vault holds the working versions. The first edition is here exactly as released. Everything after it is worked on in a public vault and moves here when signed off, with a delta between every two versions.
The book as published, and the drafts kept apart
The 28 chapters the 2018 build published, in the print edition's order with its page numbers; and, kept apart, the 6 drafts and 89 outlines it left out, which the second edition starts from.
28published chapters31,755words published139print pages95drafts and outlines
The table of contents → Read and review → The print PDF →One version so far
Where v1.0.0 comes from, the 2018 change log, and the page that will carry the block-by-block delta to v2.
The map138 files, 89 answered
Every 2018 chapter and outline, the newsroom articles that have since answered it, and the gap.
The teamReviewer, editor, publisher
Each reads, challenges, interviews Dinis and signs off. The first interview script is written.
The vaultRead along
The public working vault, its read key published: the working copy of v1, the board, the reviews, the roles.
Read & reviewThe reader, and the editor's desk
The book with its graph beside it; mark, comment, fold and export a review; a reading meter after the newsroom's rules.
Contributors20 people, 21 pull requests
Who fixed, asked and commented on the first edition, from its git history and GitHub issues: 63 commits by others, 43 issues.
This site's articles
How the work is briefed: each idea, task or review is written up as an article first, then a role is pointed at it.
- Write it as an article: how I brief the agents that finish this book, and why their first job is to ship the book we already shipped
- Release the book we already released: v1.0.0 end to end, first with the 2018 print file and a new cover, then built from this repository, before a word of it changes
- One board for the book: every issue a file, a Kanban page built from the files, and every content issue pinned to a version and a sentence
- Everything unfinished in one place: the outlines, the drafts, the 2018 GitHub issues and my handwritten notes, as one inventory I can read through and decide on
- Read, comment, decide: how I go through the pile, one item at a time, and how the editor turns my decisions into the next version of the book
The articles behind it
The newsroom series tagged gen-z-book, in the order published, and the two build briefs: captured verbatim.
What this site does not claim
- The second edition is not written. This release has the first edition, the map, the roles, the vault and the versions machinery.
- The map is a first reading. Not every outline has an article, and not every article fits; the reviewer and the editor decide.
- The address is the one proposed, matching the printed cover's Gen Z Developers; to confirm.
- The licence of the 2018 text is to confirm with Dinis: CC BY on the cover, CC BY-SA in the footer, Apache 2.0 on the repository.
Built as the build brief a website to finish the book asked: the new repository with v1 imported as released, a static site showing it chapter by chapter, and a versions page reusing the newsroom's page_versions.py. The agent surface is llms.txt.