What does WISC (stack) mean?

Question

LAMP is a well-known acronym for the software/technology bundle/stack representing Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. There are a few passing references on the Web that use the acronym WISC to speak of the other (supposedly Microsoft-centric) software/technology bundle/stack in contrast to LAMP. There is, however, no Wikipedia entry on WISC at this time nor any relevant results from googling. Does the following seem like the right de-composition of the WISC acronym?

If yes, is there a Web reference that coins the WISC acronym? If no, is there another acronym used to represent the Microsoft-centric stack when comparing with LAMP?

P.S. First sighting of WISC at “ASP.NET Caching vs. memcached: Seeking Efficient Data Partitioning, Lookup, and Retrieval”.

It's not WISC, it's RISC (used by LITHP programmers). I'll get me coat. — Skizz, Oct 07 '08 at 10:46
[Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children) — Randolpho, Jul 19 '10 at 19:23
Why do people feel compelled to fit reality to the acronym and not vice-versa? — gonzobrains, Feb 21 '14 at 01:00
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this isn't a programming question. — Tunaki, Jan 18 '16 at 19:33
I am currently developing Kotlin apps with a No SQL database, delivered by an Apache server running on a Windows machine. Just so I can tell people about my tech stack. — sanepete, Oct 02 '20 at 10:50

score 78 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 09 '18 at 07:03

78

Or WISA: Windows, IIS, SQL Server, ASP.net

I don't know why anyone would want to call it WISC, as these people are essentially saying "We will never ever use VB.NET, IronPython, IronRuby, F# or any other .NET Language". Also calling it .NET (WISN) sounds a bit weird as well, since ASP.NET is the Web-Technology of .NET. But well, that's the good things about acronyms and standard. Everyone has its own.

edited Dec 09 '18 at 07:03

Shimmy Weitzhandler

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answered Oct 07 '08 at 10:48

Michael Stum

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Do you have any links where WISA is coined? Interestingly, Wikipedia redirects to LAMP when you search for WISA. – Atif Aziz Oct 07 '08 at 10:55
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I don't have any source, i remember it coming up after some time Heise coined LAMP (http://www.heise.de/ct/english/98/12/230/) in Germany – Michael Stum Oct 07 '08 at 14:38
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I think WINS (Windows, IIS, .NET, SQL) sounds more marketing-friendly, but it's been used in other acronyms before. – Justin Morgan - On strike Jun 16 '11 at 20:53
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WINS also doesn't follow the ordering of LAMP with respect to the technologies. – Élie Mar 22 '17 at 02:30

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '08 at 10:43

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That looks correct although I would have called it WISN (Wizzen) with .NET at the end rather than a particular language within the .NET ecosphere.

The best one is:

FreeBSD Apache PostgreSQL Ruby (FAPpeR) / Perl/PHP (FAPP!) ...

answered Oct 07 '08 at 10:43

JeeBee

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Microsoft will probably market it as WIS.NET though :( – Even Mien Apr 24 '09 at 17:06
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hehehe... FAPpeR * giggles * – Christopher Francisco Jul 04 '14 at 13:39

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 19 '10 at 19:21

If you're asking for something more-or-less like LAMP except it runs on Windows, I usually see

WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP)
WIMP (MS Windows; MS IIS (Internet Information Services); MySQL, MS SQL Server or MS Access; PHP, Perl, or Python).

On a completely unrelated topic,

When I use the term "WISC", I'm always talking about some WISC (writable instruction set computer) design, such as the Intel Xeon. Many of them "stack computers" (stack machines). Perhaps the most famous are the WISC CPU/16 and the WISC CPU/32 designed by Philip Koopman; each design is a "stack computer" (as opposed to a "memory-to-memory machine" or "RISC" or "accumulator machine").

What does WISC (stack) mean?

3 Answers3