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Ward Cunningham Biography

Ward Cunningham

Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and extreme programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham (commonly known by its domain name, c2.com), on March 25, 1995, as an add-on to the Portland Pattern Repository. He is one of the 17 original signatories of the Agile Manifesto.

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Ward Cunningham Quotes

Over and over, people try to design systems that make tomorrow's work easy. But when tomorrow comes it turns out they didn't quite understand tomorrow's work, and they actually made it harder.

Design, Easy, Harder, People, Trying

When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.

Cost, Hard, Mistake, Situations, Trying

A wiki works best where you're trying to answer a question that you can't easily pose, where there's not a natural structure that's known in advance to what you need to know.

Answers, Known, Needs, Trying, Wiki, Works

I can't tell you how much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering, but that means you have to set up the situation such that when something does go wrong, you can fix it.

Empowering, Happens, Make, Matter, Mean, Worry

Global collaboration is something that Wiki mastered in a small way and here we can master it in a big way.

Bigs, Collaboration, Global, Mastered, Way, Wiki

I don't claim to be a methodologist, but I act like one only because I do methodology to protect myself from crazy methodologists.

Claim, Claims, Crazy, Like, Methodology

What is simplicity? Simplicity is the shortest path to a solution.

Path, Shortest, Simplicity, Solution, Solutions

Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a standstill under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.

Brought, Engineering, Long, Occurs, Organization, Speeds

Why have a locked wiki when you can instead just post static Web pages?

Instead, Pages, Post, Posts, Static

Each routine you read turns out to be pretty much what you expected. You can call it beautiful code when the code also makes it look like the language was made for the problem.

Beautiful, Look, Looks, Read, Routine

There's been an awful lot of discussion about what is or isn't simple, and people have gotten a pretty sophisticated notion of simplicity, but I'm not sure it has helped.

Helped, People, Simple, Simplicity, Sophisticated

The shortest path to exceeding expectations doesn't generally pass through meeting expectations.

Exceeding Expectations, Expectations, Generally, Meeting, Path

And then there are difficulties. Computers are famous for difficulties. A difficulty is just a blockage from progress. You have to try a lot of things. When you finally find what works, it doesn't tell you a thing. It won't be the same tomorrow. Getting the computer to work is so often dealing with difficulties.

Difficulties, Progress, Same, Tomorrow, Trying, Works

When I was at Tek, I was frustrated that computer hardware was being improved faster than computer software. I wanted to invent some software that was completely different, that would grow and change as it was used. That's how wiki came about.

Came, Completely, Computer, Different, Frustrated, Hardware

When a manager asks for hard data, that's usually just his way of saying no.

Asks, Data, Saying, Saying No, Usually, Way

The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer.

Ask, Computer, Post, Way, Wrong, Wrong Answers

What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?

Possibly, Simplest, Thing, Work