Ward's original idea for the development of wiki was the WikiBase, a LiterateProgramming environment for wiki. But it didn't work for the following reasons:

* Inadequate security in the language. A real programmable wiki should be programmed in a language that can't be used to break the wiki. WikiLanguage?
* Inadequate licensing. CreativeCommons didn't exist and when Ward was asked about explicitly adding such a license to pages/snippets he didn't respond.
* Inadequate model. Wiki is an unstructured network of pages - it can be visualized by things like TouchGraph, but its semantic substructure isn't explicit. A ProgrammableWiki would have to make it explicit, and the model format isn't clear.

So ... is it plausible to fix these things and define a true ProgrammableWiki? -- PeterMerel
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Interesting question. I think the answer is a yes with severe limits. What do you think? 
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Can the last point, "unstructured network of pages", be corrected a little with this: http://www.oddmuse.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Link_Type_Positioning_In_A_Wiki_Page? -- TonyArmani

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See also WikiWithProgrammableContent