The WikiWikiWeb is the first

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

, or user-editable website. It was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer

Ward Cunningham Howard G. Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki Excerpt from 2014 book '' The Innovators''. and was a co-author of the '' Manifesto for Agile Software Development''. Called a pioneer, and ...

and has been a read-only archive since 2015. The name ''WikiWikiWeb'' originally also applied to the

wiki software Wiki software (also known as a wiki engine or a wiki application) is collaborative software that runs a wiki, which allows the users to create and collaboratively edit pages or entries via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web application ...

that operated the website, which was later renamed to "WikiBase".

Description

WikiWikiWeb is the first

, or user-editable website. The site was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer

to accompany the

Portland Pattern Repository The Portland Pattern Repository (PPR) is an online repository for computer programming software design patterns. It was accompanied by the website WikiWikiWeb, the world's first wiki. The repository has an emphasis on extreme programming, and i ...

website discussing

software design pattern In software engineering, a software design pattern or design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in many contexts in software design. A design pattern is not a rigid structure to be transplanted directly into s ...

s. The name ''WikiWikiWeb'' originally also applied to the

that operated the website, written in the

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

programming language and later renamed to "WikiBase".

Hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to Data (computing), data by a user (computing), user's point and click, clicking or touchscreen, tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to ...

s between pages on WikiWikiWeb are created by joining capitalized words together, a technique referred to as

camel case The writing format camel case (sometimes stylized autological, autologically as camelCase or CamelCase, also known as camel caps or more formally as medial capitals) is the practice of writing phrases without spaces or punctuation and with cap ...

. This convention of

wiki markup A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is Collaborative editing, collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edit ...

formatting is still followed by some more recent wiki software, whereas others, such as the

MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

software that powers

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

, allow links without camel case.

History

The software and website were developed in 1994 by Cunningham in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier. This concept was based on the ideas developed in

HyperCard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...

stacks that Cunningham built in the late 1980s. On March 25, 1995, he installed the software on his company's (Cunningham & Cunningham) website: c2.com. The site was frequently referred to by its users as simply "Wiki"; users of the early network of wiki sites that followed in the 1990s and 2000s followed a convention that using the word with a capitalized ''W'' referred exclusively to WikiWikiWeb. In December 2014, WikiWikiWeb came under the attack of

vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

, and had to be put into a read-only state. On February 1, 2015, Cunningham announced that the Wiki had been rewritten as a single-page application and migrated to the new

Federated Wiki Federated Wiki (formerly Smallest Federated Wiki) is a collaborative knowledge application developed by Ward Cunningham which adds forking features found in source control systems and other software development tools to wikis. The project was la ...

. When moved to read-only, the WikiWikiWeb's '' Welcome Visitors'' page contained the following description in the first two paragraphs:

Etymology

Cunningham came up with the name WikiWikiWeb because he remembered a

Honolulu International Airport Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main and largest airport in Hawaii.

counter employee who told him to take the

Wiki Wiki Shuttle The Wiki Wiki Shuttle () is a free shuttle bus service at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii. Shuttles run between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time, carrying people and baggage between the various terminals and gate ...

, a

shuttle bus A shuttle bus is a bus that travels a shorter route in comparison to most bus routes. Typically, shuttle buses travel in both directions between two points. Shuttle buses are designed to transport large groups of people who are all travelling ...

line that runs between the airport's terminals. "Wiki Wiki" is a

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

of "wiki", a

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an offi ...

word for "quick". Cunningham's idea was to make WikiWikiWeb's pages quickly editable by its users, so he initially thought about calling it "QuickWeb", but later changed his mind and dubbed it "WikiWikiWeb".

References

External links

WikiWikiWeb The WikiWikiWeb is the first wiki, or user-editable website. It was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer Ward Cunningham and has been a read-only archive since 2015. The name ''WikiWikiWeb'' originally also applied to the wiki software that o ...

() * The WikiBase software () * Wiki design principles () * The history of WikiWikiWeb, including comments by Ward Cunningham ()
Correspondence on the Etymology of Wiki
() {{Wiki software Wiki communities Perl software Free wiki software Internet properties established in 1995 American websites 1995 in computing

Description

History

Etymology

See also

References

External links