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“If you write a lot of programs, and you're used to squeezing them all the time, you find that it's easy to write a program that's simple. A lot of it is having a clear sense of what you want to say — writing the proof by choosing what to prove, and being clear about that. In programming, a lot of simplicity comes from knowing what matters and what doesn't matter.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“I like the notion of working the program, like an artist works a lump of clay. An artist wants to make a sculpture, but before she makes the sculpture, she just massages the clay. She starts towards making the sculpture, and sees what the clay wants to do. And the more she handles the clay, the more the clay tends to do what she wants. It becomes compliant to her will.
A development team works on a piece of code over several months. Initially, they make a piece of code, and it's a little stiff. It's small, but it's still stiff. Then they move the code, and it gets a little easier to move.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

“So today, let's write a program simply. But let's also realize that tomorrow, we're going to make it more complex, because tomorrow it's going to do more. So we'll take that simplicity and we'll lose some of it. But tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow's program is as simple as possible for tomorrow's needs. Hopefully we'll preserve simplicity as the program grows.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“Wiki pages are very much free form. Across the whole wiki there is a hypertext structure, but on a given page, within the versatility of your command of your natural language, you can say whatever needs to be said.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

“Let's not worry about what somebody reading the code tomorrow is going to think. Let's not worry about whether it's efficient. Let's not even worry about whether it will work. Let's just write the simplest thing that could possibly work.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“What I'm really doing is I'm trying to preserve the right for a programmer to think while he's typing. If you feel that it’s not going well, you can stop and say 'What did I get wrong? Let me correct it.”

Ward Cunningham

Geek Noise (2004)

“Cooperation has a transactional nature, we agree it is a mutual good. Collaboration is deeper, we don’t know what the transaction is, or if there is one, but if I give of myself to this collaboration, some good will come out of it. You have to trust somebody to collaborate.”

Ward Cunningham

Crucible of Creativity (2005)

“Discussion groups tend to keep covering the same ground over and over again, because people forget what was said before. I think the invention of the Frequently Asked Questions, the FAQ, was a response to that. A lot of times just reading the FAQ is more valuable than joining the discussion group.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

“You don't want to write a big comment that tells others how to make a change they might want to make, because you don't know what change they're going to want to make. Better to have the attitude that you can't help future programmers make their changes. All you can do is make it easy for them to understand what you were trying to do. And it will be easiest for them to understand what you were trying to do if you were very careful to not try to do too much.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

“We erased a problem by not trying to erase the problem, by saying, "This is in the nature of what we do." It's really weird that it could be that simple.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“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.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

“In the months before I made wiki, we had been having an argument. I think Kent Beck and I were on one side. People who had a lot of faith in the prevailing dogma of software engineering were on the other side. We said, "Collective code ownership is good." They said, "That's ridiculous. You'll never get responsibility. You'll never get quality if you don't have responsibility. And the only way you'll get responsibility is ownership. You have to pin the bugs back on somebody if you want them to ever rise above producing bugs."”

Ward Cunningham

And I said, "Well that's wrong."
A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“The idea of where does an idea come from and who should get credit for it is pretty soft. But I think people are pretty good at dealing with that softness and recognizing contribution when they know the people involved. With collective ownership, we create a social situation where you can get to know a person by how they spin their intellect into source code statements.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“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.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“What you get as a wiki reader is access to people who had no voice before.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

“When people work code they can often see things I set out to do that they wouldn't notice otherwise. And there are no obligations to say, "Ward you're brilliant," but sometimes they say, "Ward you're brilliant." And that strokes my ego. Pride of ownership? You bet.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“There is a programming smell here… which is kind of like the smell in your refrigerator, you know. There's a sign that there's something wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on it. But you know if you leave it there, its only going to get worse.”

Ward Cunningham

Geek Noise (2004)

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

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work

“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.”

Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

“A wiki is a work sustained by a community.”

Ward Cunningham

Crucible of Creativity (2005)