less_retarded_wiki/wikiwikiweb.md
Miloslav Ciz 556653d6e4 Update
2022-06-17 21:19:32 +02:00

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# WikiWikiWeb
WikiWikiWeb (also *c2 Wiki* or just *Wiki*) was the first ever created [wiki](wiki.md) (user editable) website, created in 1995 in [Perl](perl.md) by [Ward Cunningham](cunningham.md). It was focused on [software engineering](sw_engineering.md) and computer technology in general but included a lot of discussion and pages touching on other topics, e.g. those of politics, humor or nerd and [hacker](hacking.md) culture. The principles on which this site worked, i.e. allowing users to edit its pages, greatly influenced a lot of sites that came after that are now generally called [wikis](wiki.md), of which most famous is [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md). The style of WikiWikiWeb was partly an inspiration for our [LRS wiki](lrs_wiki.md).
It had over 36000 pages (http://c2.com/cgi/wikiPages). Since 2014 the wiki can no longer be edited due to vandalism, but it's still online. It was originally available at http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki, now at http://wiki.c2.com/ (sadly now requires [JavaScript](js.md), WTF how is this a hacker site???).
The site's engine was kind of [suckless](suckless.md)/[KISS](kiss.md), even Wikipedia looks [bloated](bloat.md) compared to it. It was pure unformatted [HTML](html.md) that used a very clever system of [hyperlinks](hypertext.md) between articles: any [CamelCase](camelcase.md) multiword in the text was interpreted as a link to an article, so for example the word `SoftwareDevelopment` was automatically a link to a page called *Software Development*. This presented a slight issue e.g. for single-word topics but the creativity required for overcoming the obstacle was part of the [fun](fun.md), for example the article on [C](c.md) was called `CeeLanguage`.
Overall the site was also very different from [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md) and allowed informal comments, jokes and subjective opinions in the text. It was pretty entertaining to read. There's a lot of old hacker wisdom to be found there.
## Interesting Pages
These are some interesting pages found on the Wiki.
- **CategoryCategory**: List of categories of pages.
- **CategoryHumor**: Humorous pages.
- **ComputerGame**
- **ExtinctionOfHumanity**: Discussing end of humanity and a possible [collapse](collapse.md).
- **GameOfChess**: About [chess](chess.md).
- **LanguageGotchas**
- **WeirdErrorMessages**
- **WikiWikiWebFaq**
- **WithinTwentyYears**: Mostly pre-2005 predictions about what technology would be like in 20 years, a lot of hits and misses.
- **WikiHistory**
## See Also
- [Jargon File](jargon_file.md)
- [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md)