Ward

Cunningham

Howard G. Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is an American computer

programmer who developed the first wiki and was a co-author of the Manifesto
for Agile Software Development. A pioneer in both design patterns and extreme
programming, he started coding the WikiWikiWeb in 1994, and installed it on
c2.com (the website of his software consultancy) on March 25, 1995, as an add-
on to the Portland Pattern Repository. He co-authored (with Bo Leuf) a book
about wikis, entitled The Wiki Way, and invented the Framework for Integrated
Tests.
 Ward Cunningham

Cunningham in December 2011

Born Howard G. Cunningham

May 26, 1949
Michigan City, Indiana, U.S.

Alma mater Purdue University

Occupation Computer programmer

Years active 1984–present

Known for WikiWikiWeb, the first implementation of

a wiki

Call sign K9OX (http://www.qrz.com/db/K9OX)

Cunningham was a keynote speaker at the first three instances of the WikiSym
conference series on wiki research and practice, and also at the Wikimedia
Developer Summit 2017.[1]

Early life and employment

Howard G. Cunningham was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 26, 1949.[2]
He grew up in Highland, Indiana, staying there through high school.[3] He
received his bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary engineering (electrical
engineering and computer science) and his master's degree in computer science
from Purdue University, graduating in 1978.[4] He is a co-founder of Cunningham
& Cunningham, a software consultancy he started with his wife.[5] He has also
served as Director of R&D at Wyatt Software and as Principal Engineer in the
Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory. He is founder of The Hillside Group
and has served as program chair of the Pattern Languages of Programming
conference which it sponsors. Cunningham was part of the Smalltalk community.

From December 2003 until October 2005, Cunningham worked for Microsoft in
the "Patterns & Practices" group. From October 2005 to May 2007, he held the
position of Director of Committer Community Development at the Eclipse
Foundation. In May 2009, he joined AboutUs as its chief technology officer.[6][7]
On March 24, 2011 The Oregonian reported that Cunningham had quietly
departed AboutUs to join the Venice Beach-based CitizenGlobal, a startup
working on crowd-sourced video content, as their chief technology officer and
the Co-Creation Czar.[8] He remains "an adviser" with AboutUs.[9][10]
Cunningham left CitizenGlobal and is now a programmer at New Relic.[11]

Ideas and inventions

Cunningham in October 2011

Cunningham is well known for a few widely disseminated ideas which he
originated and developed. The most famous among these are the wiki and many
ideas in the field of software design patterns, made popular by the Gang of Four
(GoF). He owns the company Cunningham & Cunningham Inc., a consultancy
that has specialized in object-oriented programming. He also created the site
(and software) WikiWikiWeb, the first internet wiki in 1995.

When asked in a 2006 interview with internetnews.com whether he considered

patenting the wiki concept, he explained that he thought the idea "just sounded
like something that no one would want to pay money for."[12]

Play media

Cunningham during an interview in May 2014

Cunningham is interested in tracking the number and location of wiki page edits
as a sociological experiment and may even consider the degradation of a wiki
page as part of its process to stability. "There are those who give and those who
take. You can tell by reading what they write."[13]

In 2011, Cunningham created Smallest Federated Wiki, a tool for wiki federation,
which applies aspects of software development such as forking to wiki pages. He
signed the Manifesto for Agile Software Development [14]

Cunningham has contributed to the practice of object-oriented programming, in

particular the use of pattern languages and (with Kent Beck) the class-
responsibility-collaboration cards. He also contributes to the extreme
programming software development methodology. Much of this work was done
collaboratively on the first wiki site.

"Cunningham's Law"
…
Cunningham is credited with the idea: "The best way to get the right answer on
the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."[15] This refers
to the observation that people are quicker to correct a wrong answer than to
answer a question. According to Steven McGeady, Cunningham advised him of
this on a whim in the early 1980s, and McGeady dubbed this Cunningham's
law.[16] Although originally referring to interactions on Usenet, the law has been
used to describe how other online communities work, such as Wikipedia.[17]
Cunningham himself denies ownership of the law, calling it a "misquote that
disproves itself by propagating through the internet."[18]

Personal life

Cunningham lives in Beaverton, Oregon.[11] He holds an Amateur Radio Extra

Class license issued by the Federal Communications Commission, and his call
sign is Kilo Nine Oscar X-ray, K9OX.[19][20][21][22]

Cunningham is Nike's first Code for a Better World Fellow.[23]

Publications

Leuf, Bo; Cunningham, Ward (2001). The Wiki Way. Addison-Wesley

Professional. ISBN 978-0201714999.

See also

Christopher Alexander – Cunningham cites Alexander's work as directly

influencing his own.

Framework for integrated test

 PatternShare

Software design pattern

References

1. "Wikimedia Developer Summit 2017 Program" (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wiki

media_Developer_Summit/2017/Program) . Retrieved January 17, 2017.

2. Harry Henderson (2009). Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology (https

://books.google.com/books?id=3Tla6d153uwC&q=ward+cunningham+may+26+19
49&pg=PA122) . Facts On File. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-8160-6382-6.

3. "Ward's Home Page" (http://c2.com/~ward/) . Retrieved September 29, 2018.

4. The Wikipedia Revolution - Andrew Lih, page 46

5. Lih, Andrew (2009). The Wikipedia Revolution, p. 58. Hyperion, New York.
ISBN 9781401303716.

6. Bishop, Todd. (January 26, 2004) Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Microsoft Notebook:

Wiki pioneer planted the seed and watched it grow. (http://www.seattlepi.com/busin
ess/158020_msftnotebook26.html) Section: Business; Page D1.

7. Rogoway, Mike (May 18, 2007). "Inventor of the wiki has a new job in Portland" (http
://blog.oregonlive.com/business/2007/05/inventor_of_the_wiki_has_a_new.html) .
The Oregonian business blog.

8. "Our Proven Leadership Team" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120512225221/http:

//www.citizenglobal.com/info/team) . Citizen Global Website. Archived from the
original (http://www.citizenglobal.com/info/team) on May 12, 2012. Retrieved
May 8, 2012.

9. Rogoway, Mike (March 24, 2011). "Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki, has a
new job in SoCal" (http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2011/03/ward_cunningh
am_inventor_of_th.html) . The Oregonian business blog.

10. "Ward Cunningham Joins CitizenGlobal" (https://web.archive.org/web/2015101605

2532/http://blog.ratedstar.com/?p=206) . Blog.ratedstar.com. March 31, 2011.
Archived from the original (http://blog.ratedstar.com/?p=206) on October 16,
2015.

11. "Ward Cunningham Joins the New Relic Family" (http://blog.newrelic.com/2013/04/

05/ward-cunningham-post/) . New Relic Blog. April 5, 2013. Retrieved
December 2, 2014.
 December 2, 2014.

12. Kerner, Sean Michael (December 8, 2006), Q&A with Ward Cunningham (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20120916082436/http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/articl
e.php/3648131) , internetnews.com, archived from the original (http://www.intern
etnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3648131) on September 16, 2012

13. CubeSpace, Portland Oregon (December 7, 2008). "Ward Cunningham, Lecture" (ht
tps://web.archive.org/web/20090207092829/http://cyborgcamp.blip.tv/) . Cyborg
Camp Live Stream – Mogulus Live Broadcast. Archived from the original (http://cyb
orgcamp.blip.tv/#1564923) on February 7, 2009.

14. "Manifesto for Agile Software Development" (http://agilemanifesto.org/) . June 11,

2019.

15. "Jurisimprudence"
(http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/jurisimprudence/) . Schott's Vocab
Blog. Retrieved January 4, 2017.

16. McGeady, Steven (May 28, 2010). "Cunningham's Law" (http://schott.blogs.nytimes

.com/2010/05/31/jurisimprudence/) . Schott's Vocab. New York Times. Comment
No. 119. Retrieved August 30, 2012. "n.b. named after Ward Cunningham, a
colleague of mine at Tektronix. This was his advice to me in the early 1980s with
reference to what was later dubbed USENET, but since generalized to the Web and
the Internet as a whole. Ward is now famous as the inventor of the Wiki. Ironically,
Wikipedia is now perhaps the most widely-known proof of Cunningham's Law."

17. Friedman, Nancy (May 31, 2010). "Word of the Week: Cunningham's Law" (http://na
ncyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2010/05/word-of-the-week-cunningha
ms-law.html) . Retrieved August 30, 2012.

18. Cunningham (October 18, 2015), NOT CUNNINGHAM'S LAW (https://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=fclyQt6R5Dc) , retrieved December 20, 2017

19. Federal, Communications Commission. "K9OX" (http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/Uls

Search/license.jsp?licKey=269571) . United States Government. Retrieved
November 4, 2016.

20. Federal, Communications Commission. "Ward Cunningham" (http://wireless2.fcc.go

v/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=7405786) . United States
Government. Retrieved November 4, 2016.

21. Federal, Communications Commission. "K9OX, Expired" (http://wireless2.fcc.gov/Ul

sApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=1524544) . United States
Government. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
22. TenTec, Wiki. "Ward Cunningham" (https://web.archive.org/web/20161105032547/h
ttp://www.tentecwiki.org/doku.php?id=wiki:about) . Ten Tec Wiki. Archived from
the original (http://www.tentecwiki.org/doku.php?id=wiki:about) on November 5,
2016. Retrieved November 4, 2016.

23. "Nike Materials Index: Open Data Hackathon" (https://web.archive.org/web/2011100

7062130/http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/200977186-nike-
materials-index-open-data-hackathon) . San Francisco Chronicle. August 6, 2009.
Archived from the original (http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/
200977186-nike-materials-index-open-data-hackathon) on October 7, 2011.
Retrieved August 23, 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ward Cunningham.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ward Cunningham

WikiWikiWeb (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki) , including his WikiHomePage

2012 Dr. Dobb's Interview (http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/2

40000393?pgno=1)

EclipseCon 2006 interview with Ward Cunningham (MP3 audio podcast,

running time 20:01) (http://www.SQLSummit.com/People/WCunningham.htm)

The Microsoft patterns & practices group home page (http://www.microsoft.co

m/practices)

The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work (http://www.artima.com/intv/sim

plest.html) (2004 interview)

"The Web's wizard of working together (http://www.redorbit.com/news/technol

ogy/334653/the_webs_wizard_of_working_together/) " – profile originally in
The Oregonian, December 19, 2005

You can look it up: The Wikipedia story (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles

/2014/10/19/you-can-look-it-up-the-wikipedia-story.html) – excerpt from
 the 2014 book The Innovators

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