# What is Quine?

Quine is a streaming graph interpreter. It's a server-side program which consumes data, builds it into a graph structure, and runs live computation on that graph to answer questions or compute results, and then stream them out. The main idea is two-sided: event-driven data <==> data-driven events

## What is _a quine_?

@link:[A quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_%28computing%29){ open=new } is a program that outputs its own source code.

## Is Quine a quine?

@ref:[Not yet.](../community/contributing.md)

## Who is Quine?

@link:[Willard Van Orman Quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine){ open=new } was a 20th century philosopher and logician. One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, his work focused largely on the Philosophy of Language and the Philosophy of Science.

## Is Quine inspired by Quine?

Yes. Quine (the project) was created by Ryan Wright in 2014 as, among other things, an experiment to model W. V. O. Quine's concept of the "Web of Belief." While Quine (the project) quickly evolved away from that initial idea, many of the technical issues that had to be resolved in the creation of this project were informed by or are analogous to issues discussed in W. V. O. Quine's work. The deep thinking and clear logic that Quine (the philosopher) is known for have been an aspirational guiding light, and this project is named in his honor.
