WikiWikiWeb

(As of: 2014-12-26)

The WikiWikiWeb wiki site is the world's first, oldest, and longest-running wiki site. It primarily focussed on , , and  in . WikiWikiWeb was originally powered by software known as  and located at http://C2.com/cgi/wiki – a location that is still available (though now redirects to https://Wiki.C2.com), but  to due to persistent vandalism in December 2014 and January 2015. In February 2015, WikiWikiWeb was migrated to a <Federated wiki ></Federated wiki> (originally at  http://C2.Fed.Wiki.org/ </tt>).

The first wiki engine software was compiled in the Perl programming language in 1994 by Ward Cunningham (now known as the 'father of wiki'), and was based on a HyperCard stack that Cunningham designed for <collaboration ></collaboration> with his former colleagues at Tektronix in Portland, Oregon. WikiWikiWeb was <founded in 1995 ></founded in 1995> under the internet domain of Cunningham's software consultancy 'Cunningham & Cunningham, ; (also in Portland) on March 25, 1995, as an automated add-on to its Portland Pattern Repository, a directory for publication of programming patterns which programmers sent by e-mail.

Confusingly, the original Perl-based software and the actual content it maintained were frequently both described as the WikiWikiWeb, especially prior to the existence of other wikis. This article page here on WikiIndex refers to the wiki site and its textual content, rather than the <WikiWikiWeb ></WikiWikiWeb> software itself.

Abbreviated variants of the name WikiWikiWeb are WikiWiki and Wiki. It has also been informally called Ward's Wiki, as an to its creator. Ward Cunningham named WikiWikiWeb after 'Wiki Wiki', a line of Chance RT-52 shuttle buses running between terminals at. The name of the shuttle line is derived from the Hawaiian-language wiki, which means 'fast' or 'quick'. The repetition wiki wiki is used to emphasize wiki, so wiki wiki could be interpreted as 'faster than fast'.

The original wiki software, <Wiki Base ></Wiki Base>, was rarely altered, so new facilities were typically implemented by de-facto policy and manual effort, or via external websites. This had the benefit of allowing facilities to be flexibly added without programming. However, it required manual effort to maintain. For example, ChangesInMonth were always generated manually and maintained by a succession of individuals, most recently John Fletcher. The new Federated wiki software permits extensions via plugins, which may facilitate automating processes that were formerly manual.

The original purpose of WikiWikiWeb was to document <programming ></programming> patterns, especially for members of Ralph Johnson's patterns mailing list, and for people who attended the Patterns Languages of Programs Conference (PLoP) and the Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA). From 1996 to 1998, discussion of (XP) became more popular, and the first members of WikiWikiWeb, who preferred to discuss patterns, started emigrating. Some of them later complained about missing Wiki before XP.

Some former regular users of WikiWikiWeb complained that the discussion on WikiWikiWeb deteriorated since about 1999 or 2000, describing that deterioration as the heat death of Wiki. Later activity focused more on 'thread mode' debates and social banter around programming topics, plus curation of the early content, than the 'document mode' creation of summary pages that characterised its early Patterns and XP years.

<References/>
 * ''References


 * ''External links
 * Ward's personal pages (these pages are not inside the wiki) — at C2.com, via Archive.org
 * C2.com/cgi/wiki — WikiWikiWeb via the original Perl-based software, now read-only, at C2.com, via Archive.org
 * Wiki.C2.com — WikiWikiWeb via the new Federated wiki system (originally at C2.Fed.Wiki.org</tt>)