What is the [pure] tag for?

Question

What is the pure tag for? It looks like a candidate for burnination - touches:

• Pure JavaScript Templates System
• Pure Virtual Functions
• Pure Functions ()
• Purely Functional functions/algorithms/procedures
• "Pure Pointer Notation"
• A variety of Haskall concepts I don't understand
• C++ pure_assert_impl
• The C# PureAttribute, used in code contracts
• C++ pure/const
• Recently I've seen new questions coming in about Pure Data
• No mention of Pure that I can find

Seems like an incohesive mess.

---

Is purity in the same ballpark? (only 7 questions...)

Answer 1

I've gone through more than half of the questions formerly tagged pure, removing the label when it was clearly not necessary:

• Thinigs like "pure HTML", "pure CSS", "pure JS", "pure Java", "pure Python", "pure Lua" I just removed it.
• In instances of "pure virtual" questions, I changed it to pure-virtual

I took a chance and changed some tags from pure to either pure-function or purely-functional. In some instances of questions about Fortran I changed it to pure-procedure and left a comment asking if my change makes sense.

I left several questions as-is, as I didn't feel I knew enough about the following topics (or technologies) to edit them:

• The Pure HTML/JSON templating system
• The Pure programming language
• "Pure pointer notation"
• Haskall concepts: "Pure Functional Programming"; "Pure Global Variable"; "Pure Computation"
• The "Pure Java API" - is this a thing?
• C++ pure_assert_impl
• C# Pure code contracts
• C++ pure/const

Answer 2

It is mostly being used as a meta tag:

• Requesting a 'pure' CSS/HTML/Java/C/Lua/whatever solution. (How do I show two images with different height/width ratios side by side with equal heights, in fluid div that covers percentage of window width?, Array access via double pointer, losing its body, pure C, and more).
• Asking if their approach is 'pure' enough (What happens if you compile a program that takes no input? (Haskell IO purity issues (again)), How to represent tree with sharing in Haskell).

But there is some non-meta use as well:

• About the 'purity' of a functional approach (Why is printf() an impure function?, Why is numCapabilities a pure function?, etc.) These should be retagged as purely-functional.

If you retag the questions in that last category, then you should burn it.