Ward Cunningham

Infobox Person
name = Ward Cunningham

---

caption = Ward Cunningham at Wikimania 2006
birth_date = birth date and age|1949|5|26
birth_place = United States
other_names =
known_for = WikiWikiWeb, the first implementation of a wiki
occupation = Computer programmer

Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is the 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 currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon and is the chief technology officer for AboutUs.

He has co-authored a book about wikis, titled The Wiki Way, and also invented Framework for Integrated Tests. He was a keynote speaker at the first three instances of the WikiSym conference series on wiki research and practice.

Personal history

Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham received his Bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary engineering (electrical engineering and computer science) and his master's degree in computer science from Purdue University. He is a founder of Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc. 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, he worked for Microsoft Corporation 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 2007, he joined AboutUs as its chief technology officer. [cite web |title=Transition |url=http://eclipseprojects.blogspot.com/2007/05/transition.html |author=Ward Cunningham |accessdate=2007-05-19 |date=2007-05-17] [Bishop, Todd. (January 26, 2004) Seattle Post-Intelligencer. " [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/158020_msftnotebook26.html Microsoft Notebook: Wiki pioneer planted the seed and watched it grow.] " Section: Business; Page D1.] [cite news |date=May 18, 2007 |title=Inventor of the wiki has a new job in Portland |publisher=The Oregonian business blog |author=Rogoway, Mike |url=http://blog.oregonlive.com/business/2007/05/inventor_of_the_wiki_has_a_new.html ]

Ideas and inventions

Cunningham is well-known for a few widely disseminated ideas which he originated and developed. The most famous among these are the wiki (named after WikiWikiWeb) and many ideas in the field of software patterns.

In a 2006 interview with internetnews.com Cunningham admitted that he had thought about patenting the Wiki concept when he first created it. [cite news |date=December 8, 2006 |title=Q&A with Ward Cunningham |publisher=internetnews.com |author=Kerner, Sean Michael |url=http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3648131 ]

Patterns and Extreme Programming

Cunningham is also well known for his contributions to the developing practice of object-oriented programming, in particular the use of pattern languages and, (with Kent Beck), CRC (Class-Responsibility Collaboration) cards. He is also a significant contributor to the Extreme Programming software development methodology. A great deal of this work was collaboratively carried out in the first wiki site itself.

References

External links

* [http://360techblog.com/ward-cunningham-the-way-of-eclipse/2006/03/31/ The Way of Eclipse interview at Eclipsecon 2006]
* [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki WikiWikiWeb] , including his " [http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardCunningham WikiHomePage] "
* [http://www.SQLSummit.com/People/WCunningham.htm EclipseCon 2006 interview with Ward Cunningham (MP3 audio podcast, running time 20:01)]
* [http://www.microsoft.com/practices The Microsoft patterns & practices group home page]
* [http://c2.com/doc/oopsla89/paper.html A Laboratory For Teaching Object-Oriented Thinking] (paper introducing CRC Cards)
* [http://www.artima.com/intv/simplest.html The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work] (2004 interview)
*" [http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/334653/the_webs_wizard_of_working_together/ The Web's wizard of working together] " - profile originally in "The Oregonian", December 19, 2005
* [http://c2.com/~ward/ Ward's Personal Pages]