The
WikiWikiWeb is the first ever
wiki, or user-editable website. It was launched on 25 March 1995 by its inventor, programmer
Ward Cunningham, to accompany the
Portland Pattern Repository website discussing
software design patterns. The name
WikiWikiWeb originally also applied to the
wiki software that operated the website, written in the
Perl programming language and later renamed to "WikiBase". The site is frequently referred to by its users as simply "Wiki", and a convention established among users of the early network of wiki sites that followed was that using the word with a capitalized
W referred exclusively to the original site.