In the past two years, the STJA conference featured a special track on generative programming, which was organized by the working group "Generative and Component-Based Software Engineering" of the "Gesellschaft für Informatik" FG 2.1.9 "Object-Oriented Software Engineering". This track covered a wide range of related topics ranging from domain analysis, software system family engineering, and software product lines, to extendible compilers and active libraries. The talks and keynotes directed towards this new software engineering paradigm received much attention and interest from the STJA audience. Hence the STJA organizers suggested to enlarge this track, make it more visible, and open it for a wider, international participation. This is how the idea of the GCSE symposium, still to be held under the auspices of STJA, was born. The first GCSE symposium attracted 39 submissions from all over the world. This impressive number demonstrates the international interest in generative programming and related fields. After a careful review by the program committee, fifteen papers were selected for presentation. We are very grateful to the members of the program committee, all of them being renowned experts, for their dedication in preparing thorough reviews of the submissions. Special thanks go to Elke Pulvermüller and Andreas Speck, who proposed and prepared a special conference event, the Young Researches Workshop (YRW). This workshop provides a unique opportunity for young scientists and PhD students to present their ideas and visions of generative programming and related topics and to receive a thorough critique and feedback from senior experts in the field. We are also indebted to the keynote speakers and tutorial presenters of this year, Don Batory, Ira Baxter, Jim Coplien, and Brad Cox, for their contribution to GCSE'99. Finally, we wish to thank all, who put in their efforts and helped to make this first symposium happen, especially the authors and the STJA organizers. We hope you will enjoy the talks and the tutorials!