![Ward Cunningham - Commons-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Ward_Cunningham_-_Commons-1.jpg)
The WikiWikiWeb is the first
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
, or user-editable website.
It was launched on 25 March 1995 by programmer
Ward Cunningham to accompany the
Portland Pattern Repository
The Portland Pattern Repository (PPR) is a repository for computer programming software design patterns. It was accompanied by a companion website, WikiWikiWeb, which was the world's first wiki. The repository has an emphasis on Extreme Programmin ...
website discussing
software design pattern
In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine code ...
s. 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, written in the
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
programming language and later renamed to "WikiBase". The site is frequently referred to by its users as simply "Wiki", and a convention established among users of the early network of wiki sites that followed was that using the word with a capitalized ''W'' referred exclusively to the original site.
History
The software and website were developed in 1994 by Cunningham in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier. The concept was based on the ideas developed in
HyperCard
HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web.
HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, fl ...
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. 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 airport of Oahu, Hawaii.[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 am and 10:00 pm local time, carrying people and baggage between the various terminals.
In the Haw ...](_blank)
, 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 travellin ...
line that runs between the airport's terminals. "Wiki Wiki" is a
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
of "wiki", a
Hawaiian language
Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...
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".
, the WikiWikiWeb's ''
WelcomeVisitors'' page contained the following description in the first two paragraphs:
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wit ...
s between pages on WikiWikiWeb are created by joining capitalized words together, a technique referred to as
camel case
Camel case (sometimes stylized 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. The format indicates the separation of words with a single ...
. This convention of
wiki markup
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
formatting is still followed by some more recent wiki software, whereas others, such as the
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...
software that powers
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, allow links without camel case.
In December 2014, WikiWikiWeb came under the attack of
vandals
The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.
The ...
, and was put into a read-only state.
On February 1, 2015 Cunningham announced that the Wiki had been rewritten as a
single-page application
A single-page application (SPA) is a web application or website that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current web page with new data from the web server, instead of the default method of a web browser loading entire new pages. ...
and migrated to the new
Federated Wiki.
See also
*
History of wikis
The history of wikis began in 1994, when Ward Cunningham gave the name "WikiWikiWeb" to the knowledge base, which ran on his company's website at c2.com, and the wiki software that powered it.
The wiki went public in March 1995, the date used ...
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 to accompany the Portland Pattern Repository website discussing software design patterns. The name ''WikiWikiWeb'' origi ...
()
*
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