Ward Cunningham and the start of Wikipedia

Previously we talked about how Clan Cunningham may have played a hidden role in developing the first American electronic computer. Today we now highlight Howard G. Cunningham’s role in developing the very first wiki.

As is well known a wiki is a webpage that anyone with a web browser can edit. 

However, what is less known is Ward Cunningham developed the wiki as a method to assist engineers manage projects, with the word wiki chosen from the Hawaiian word wiki for quick. Apparently, Ward was taken with the word, after using the “Wiki Wiki Shuttle” at Honolulu International Airport.

The idea for Wikis came from Ward’s earlier experience with HyperCard, which were developed for Apple Macintosh by Bill Atkinson. In the late 1980s Hypercard began to be used by program developers to create various very simple games, with the most advanced being Myst, which was the first CD based computer game, and the first computer game to be published in only colour. Then in 1991 Wikipedia began operations and today thousands of wiki sites are in operation, with many tailored for commercial operations.

In software development, Ward Cunningham has many unique insights and achievements. One of his most famous is Cunningham’s Law, which states the best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question. It’s to post the wrong answer. This is based on his observation that people are more driven to correct wrong answers, in other words they are more driven to show off their knowledge over others.

Since creating this law, Howard Cunningham has stated this is wrong…(and correct answers should be posted on a wiki website).

Ward Cunningham was born in 1949 in the US, in Michigan City, Indiana. He obtained a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a master’s degree in Computer Science at Purdue University.

Since graduating, Ward Cunningham has worked on many projects and founded the consulting company Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc., and the Hillside Group, an educational non-profit organization. The WikiWikiWeb was created in 1995.