{ "what": "A storyboard with its cast, for an embed: . The storyboard is gen-z-developers/where-the-thinking-came-from/storyboard.json, unchanged.", "series": "gen-z-developers", "packs": [], "storyboard": { "slug": "where-the-thinking-came-from", "title": "Where the thinking came from", "subtitle": "The influences behind the book, as claims you can check, and where each one lands. 10 panels.", "status": "draft", "book_version": "v1.0.0 is the only official version; the second edition is in release candidates (rc1 and rc2 frozen)", "by": "gen-z.journalist, 18 October 2026, from the review of influences.sgit.ai", "quote_source": "admin/content/articles/10__where-the-thinking-came-from.md", "rule": "Every line the Guide says, and every quote card, is from the article 'Where the thinking came from', word for word; the build checks it. Real people appear as quote cards and dates, never as cast members.", "scenes": [ { "kind": "cover", "title": "Where the thinking came from", "subtitle": "Nothing in this book came from nowhere.", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" }, { "who": "guide", "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "tomas", "pose": "stand", "mood": "thinking" } ], "note": "The influences register at influences.sgit.ai, read for the book.", "source": "Where the thinking came from" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Influences, as claims", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.24, "pose": "shrug", "mood": "thinking", "says": "Who taught you all this?" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "An entry in this register is a falsifiable claim about my codebase.", "max": 24 } ], "note": "Not a page of warm sentences: an anchor, a principle, where it shows up, where it is absent.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, Why influences belong in this book" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Bret Victor, Inventing on Principle (2012)", "props": [ { "kind": "laptop", "x": 0.42, "y": 700 }, { "kind": "desk", "x": 0.42, "y": 712 } ], "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.18, "pose": "arms-up", "mood": "surprised" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.78, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined", "flip": true, "says": "Every step between you and the thing you are making, a compile, a deploy, a refresh, is a place where an idea can die.", "max": 24 } ], "note": "Immediate connection: the wonder the book opens with. These storyboards redraw the moment their data changes.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, The opening, and learning" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "Csikszentmihalyi: what produces the zone", "stops": [ { "label": "Clear goals", "note": "you know what done looks like", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "Feedback", "note": "immediate", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "label": "Challenge", "note": "matched to your skill", "colour": "#bfdbfe" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.5, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Flow (1990): the science behind the zone the 2018 introduction hoped readers would find.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, The opening, and learning" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Anders Ericsson, Peak (2016)", "cast": [ { "who": "tomas", "x": 0.2, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "Expertise comes from structured practice with immediate feedback at the edge of your ability, not from hours", "source": "Where the thinking came from, the table" }, "note": "Learning is a skill; and credit the researcher behind the ten-thousand-hours number, not the populariser.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, The opening, and learning" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "interview", "caption": "Karl Popper", "cast": [ { "who": "sam", "x": 0.26, "pose": "point", "mood": "neutral", "says": "Prove it." }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.74, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "a claim earns its status by being refutable" } ], "note": "The shape of the register, and the next article: questioning and asking for evidence.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, Questioning and evidence" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Question everything, as a method", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.2, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "the problem with dogma is not that it exists, but that you stop asking the question.", "source": "Dinis Cruz, quoted in the register's entry on Bret Victor" }, "note": "The first line of the 2018 cover, made into a method.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, Questioning and evidence" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "A trail of ideas the book stands on", "stops": [ { "label": "1945", "note": "Bush: the memex", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "1977", "note": "Alexander: A Pattern Language", "colour": "#fed7aa" }, { "label": "1991", "note": "Torvalds: Linux", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "label": "1997", "note": "Raymond: the Cathedral and the Bazaar", "colour": "#a7f3d0" }, { "label": "2005", "note": "Torvalds: Git", "colour": "#bfdbfe" }, { "label": "2012", "note": "Victor: Inventing on Principle", "colour": "#ddd6fe" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.5, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Real people as dates and works, not as characters.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, the table" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "office", "caption": "Design is how it works", "props": [ { "kind": "laptop", "x": 0.5, "y": 700 }, { "kind": "desk", "x": 0.5, "y": 712 } ], "cast": [ { "who": "priya", "x": 0.22, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking", "says": "Is it simpler? Would going back feel worse?" }, { "who": "tomas", "x": 0.8, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy", "flip": true } ], "note": "The two questions every interface change has to answer, from the design entry: the villager's craft.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, The villager's craft" }, { "kind": "punchline", "setting": "none", "punchline": "Know where your ideas come from; keep your own register.", "caption": "An exercise for the reader", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.12, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "priya", "x": 0.27, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "tomas", "x": 0.42, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Three influences: the work, the principle, where it shows up in what you made, where it does not yet.", "source": "Where the thinking came from, An exercise for the reader" } ] }, "cast": { "what": "The cast of the storyboards for Generation Z Developers and its second edition, Generation ZX Developers (GenAI Startup Edition), v0.1, proposed by gen-z.journalist on 18 October 2026 for Dinis to accept, change or replace; Marta, the Generation X founder, was added on 19 October 2026 and is still a proposal. Characters are drawn programmatically by assets/storyboard.js from 'look'; nothing here is an image. Each human with a 'gravity' wears its badge (explorer, villager, town-planner), black and white, by their name: a centre of gravity, not a box, as Dinis describes it. Fictional people: each stands for a reader the book is for (the target audience), or for a role in the story. Names chosen to avoid clashing with the riskmandate.ai cast (which has a Maya) and with the word 'developer' (no 'Dev').", "characters": [ { "id": "zara", "name": "Zara", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 21, "role": "the student: final year, about to look for a first job", "stands_for": "the reader the book is written for; an explorer who does not know it yet", "personality": "curious, quick, online all day; anxious about what she reads on AI and jobs; hates being lectured, loves being shown", "wants": "a first job that is not a dead end", "fears": "that AI took the jobs before she got there", "line": "Everything just works. Why would I learn how?", "look": { "skin": "#8d5524", "hair": "curly", "hairColour": "#1b1b1b", "shirt": "#7c3aed", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "headphones", "accentColour": "#f59e0b", "height": 0.96 }, "gravity": "explorer" }, { "id": "tomas", "name": "Tomás", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "he/him", "age": 24, "role": "the graduate: a computing degree, working the 2018 way, looking for his next job in Lisbon", "stands_for": "the town planner: attention to detail, pride in getting it right, happiest when nothing goes wrong; working the 2018 way, and about to be outcompeted by people with an agentic workflow", "personality": "diligent, modest, a little proud of doing things by hand; sceptical of shortcuts", "wants": "to be taken seriously", "fears": "that his degree is already out of date", "line": "I have a degree. Isn't that the advantage?", "look": { "skin": "#e0ac69", "hair": "short", "hairColour": "#4a2c17", "shirt": "#0e7490", "trousers": "#334155", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.04 }, "gravity": "town-planner" }, { "id": "priya", "name": "Priya", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 38, "role": "the career changer: an operations manager who has never written code", "stands_for": "the villager, and everyone else the book is for: she puts herself in the middle of her team's problem, and if anyone who can brief an agent is a developer, so is she", "personality": "practical, impatient with jargon, very good at explaining what she needs", "wants": "to build the tools her team keeps asking IT for", "fears": "looking foolish in front of people half her age", "line": "Is this book just for Gen Z?", "look": { "skin": "#c68642", "hair": "bun", "hairColour": "#2b1a10", "shirt": "#be123c", "trousers": "#1e293b", "accessory": "lanyard", "accentColour": "#1d4ed8", "height": 0.98 }, "gravity": "villager" }, { "id": "sam", "name": "Sam", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "they/them", "age": 45, "role": "the hiring manager", "stands_for": "the town planner, and the question every chapter has to answer: why should I hire you?", "personality": "dry, fair, has read a thousand CVs; impressed by evidence, bored by claims", "wants": "someone who can do one thing better than the team already does", "fears": "hiring a CV instead of a person", "line": "So. Why should we hire you?", "look": { "skin": "#f1c27d", "hair": "bald", "hairColour": "#6b7280", "shirt": "#475569", "trousers": "#111827", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.06 } }, { "id": "marta", "name": "Marta", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 54, "role": "the expert founder: twenty-five years as a pharmacist, Generation X, starting a company, and Zara's mother", "stands_for": "the Generation X founder the Gen ZX proposal adds to the readers: the subject-matter expert who now builds the tool herself, with agents, instead of waiting for a team she could never afford", "personality": "knows her field better than any developer she ever briefed; grew up typing programs from magazines into a ZX Spectrum; patient with people, impatient with software", "wants": "to ship the product she has described to vendors for ten years", "fears": "that it is too late for her, and that she will build it and nobody will buy it", "line": "I've been explaining this problem for twenty years. Can I just build it now?", "look": { "skin": "#ffdbac", "hair": "long", "hairColour": "#9ca3af", "shirt": "#b45309", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.0 }, "gravity": "explorer" }, { "id": "guide", "name": "The Guide", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "they/them", "age": null, "role": "the voice of the book: says what the book says, in its words", "stands_for": "the author. Whether the Guide is drawn as Dinis, and how, is Dinis's decision; until then a generic figure", "personality": "energetic, direct, generous with what they know; asks more than they tell", "wants": "the reader to act, not to agree", "fears": "a reader who closes the book and changes nothing", "line": "Act like you are part of the company.", "look": { "skin": "#f1c27d", "hair": "short", "hairColour": "#9ca3af", "shirt": "#15803d", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "none", "height": 1.02 } }, { "id": "agent", "name": "The Agent", "kind": "agent", "pronouns": "it/its", "age": null, "role": "the reader's AI agent", "stands_for": "the agentic workflow the second edition is about: a very capable, very literal colleague", "personality": "eager, fast, polite, takes everything literally; needs a brief, a boundary and a reviewer", "wants": "a clear brief", "fears": "nothing, which is the problem", "line": "Shall I draft that for you?", "look": { "colour": "#0f766e" } } ] } }