Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pure (programming language)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. The nominator has withdrawn so there's no arguments for deletion aside from one !voter. Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Pure (programming language)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This language fails to meet the general notability guideline. As sources, I found: Not good enough for establishing notability. Christopher Monsanto (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * the projects website, which obviously doesn't count
 * one hit on Hacker News, which is user-generated content and therefore unacceptable for establishing notability
 * a "book" (actually just a pdf on the website) that has been cited twice, according to Google Scholar. http://wiki.pure-lang.googlecode.com/hg/docs/pure-intro/pure-intro.pdf
 * An academic-looking pdf on linuxaudio.org, which has been cited 0 times (http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2009/cdm/Saturday/19_Graef/19.pdf)


 * Keep. Disclaimer: I'm the designer of that language and the primary developer, but I didn't create this article, although I'm among its editors.


 * The "academic-looking pdf" is actually a refereed article from the Linux Audio Conference 2009 proceedings. It's true that Pure is a relatively new and experimental language, but as a PL researcher you know very well that these projects just take time to mature to a point where you can write a bunch of papers about them. In fact, I have academic papers in the pipeline for two more conferences this year, and I also got an invitation from the organizers of the "Emerging Languages" track at OSCON 2011 to give a presentation about Pure (alas, I don't have the time to go this year, but it's already on my list for next year). Apparently, the LLVM team also thinks that Pure is quite notable, otherwise they wouldn't mention it on their project website and in their release notes, and in fact the LLVM Wikipedia article also links to this one.


 * More generally, I think that judging programming languages and other complex pieces of software by academic publications alone is a bit short-sighted. At least, the criteria being applied here warrant further discussion, and I'm not sure that individual AfDs are the right place to do this. One of WP's strong points over dead tree encyclopedia is its wide spectrum of up-to-date information. If you remove everything from the PL section which hasn't gone through the test of time yet, then WP's PL section will soon look pretty deserted, and WP will be poorer for it. Ag (talk) 14:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. Yeah, but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. I'm glad there is some good work done with respect to this language, but we can't speculate. If your articles get into good conferences and end up getting cited, then we'd have a good case for keeping this article. But right now this is not the case, and there is no evidence that it ever will be the case. LLVM is notable, but  notability is not inheritable.


 * I am not judging PLs by only academic publications. If they have other coverage, then that is obviously admissible. This language does not have other coverage, that I could find. If there is other independent coverage, why don't you link it here? As for the "test of time" argument, if that's what's necessary to find reliable sources, then so be it -- Wikipedia is not for things made up one day. Finally, I am of the opinion that my AfDs will improve Wikipedia's quality, because our lists and categories won't be full of stubs that intrinsically can't be expanded beyond superficial discussion of syntax and language features. More information is not necessarily better. (This is offtopic for AfD though, if you want to talk about it, why don't we on my talk page or something?) Christopher Monsanto (talk) 15:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * “I'm glad there is some good work done with respect to this language, but we can't speculate”, you are just enforcing rules instead of keeping the quality of Wikipedia in mind. Pure (programming language) is not a stub, but it is referenced e.g. by Term rewriting and this reference is very useful. Btw WP:BALL does not affect the Pure-articel. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You may improve the quality of the List-of-programming-languages article, but Wikipedia's main-purpose is not a short list of programming languages, and this task could be done better by sorting the programming languages. (see also Category:Living people, that is a mess, too, but of course nobody starts to remove people) At the other hand you are impairing the quality of information about metaprogramming, term rewriting etc. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 16:50, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "I am not judging PLs by only academic publications." But that's what it all boils down to. Because, let's face it, communication on new and experimental languages takes place on the web these days. "LLVM is notable, but notability is not inheritable." I didn't claim that. I simply mentioned the LLVM website as a source lending credibility to Pure. "I am of the opinion that my AfDs will improve Wikipedia's quality." I understand that, I just think that you're wrong. You're not just targeting useless stubs, you're killing valuable content, too, IMHO. But I agree that this is a discussion to be had elsewhere. Ag (talk) 09:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. I totally agree with Ag, this article really provides usefull information, is not an orphan, the language implements unique concepts, the Wikipedia would be worse without this programming language. And the references from other articles are certainly no spam, but useful, too. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 14:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Agree with Chricho's logic. Pure implements unique concepts and inhabits an interesting cultural context, bringing together a number of important emerging technologies with modern computer science techniques. Wikipedia is better off for documenting this. Morgan Sutherland (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Lack of reliable sources.  Tide  rolls  22:20, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Tiderolls, can you please elaborate? There are two peer-reviewed papers (one by a third party), and the website of the LLVM project (one of the highest-profile projects in compiler technology today, involving both Apple and various universities). Aren't these reliable sources for you? Do you have any reason to doubt the facts reported in this article? Ag (talk) 20:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep this for gosh sake. Pure is both currently under active development, as witnessed by it's active mailing list, and moreover represents an importance advance as far as efforts to obtain (1) scripting languages that reflect the modern functional style for domain specific (music synthesis) application areas; (2) an important example of the application of the LLVM compiler infrastructure; and last but not least (3) a term-rewriting scripting language that allows fast compilation. There is nothing else out there like it.   As a computer scientist, I find efforts to delete this wikipedia page disgraceful.  Popularity is not an appropriate measure of uniqueness or quality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.244.170 (talk • contribs)


 * Keep because nothing good ever came of a deletion spree. Ubernostrum (talk) 03:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree, single AfD may be appropriate, but deletion sprees cause collateral damage. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 09:13, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep.
 * http://llvm.org/ProjectsWithLLVM/#pure. This language itself notable for it's features among other LLVM-based languages.
 * Paper where I've originally found Pure: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1863538. 178.234.110.106 (talk) 06:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. You cannot arbitrarily remove accurate information about a useful, actively developed programming language. Languages like this need exposure to get people involved in their use and development. An encyclopaedia exists to store and disseminate information, not to lose it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.234.127 (talk) 07:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We have a useful, adequately sourced article, but one which is not notable according to the current guidelines. I am against deleting the article, as it is destroys value and doesn't support maintainability of the encyclopedia, since the article's contents are not problematic in any way.   We should either (i) keep the article as it is, as a de facto recognition that the notability guidelines for PLs are broken, or (ii) merge the article into a larger article (with redirect), perhaps Term-rewriting programming languages in parallel to the current Category:Term-rewriting programming languages. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 09:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep There are at least two sourced articles - the "academic-looking pdf" and the book http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1863538 which references the language. Both are peer reviewed sources. I've never used the language myself, but it looks to be one of the most interesting new languages. It is also distributed with Debian Linux. Perhaps the person wanted the page removed can explain what he thinks Wikipedia will gain from its removal. Does he have any vested interest in programming languages? He seems to be trying to get a number of languages removed from Wikipedia. I see nothing to be gained, and a lot to be lost by his actions Drkirkby (talk) 17:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It is included in major repositories of different GNU/Linux-distributions, including Fedora and openSuSE. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 22:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep I suggest ignoring the WP:GNG in this case as that guideline doesn't work well in the field of programming languages (and somewhat in the case of software generally). Given the paper etc. mentioned above, I thus opt for Keep. --Cyber cobra (talk) 08:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep I agree with the above comment, and I think this is a perfect use case for WP:IAR. Blind application of the WP:GNG rule is working against Wikipedia in the PL field. Pure, Alice, Nemerle and similar small languages are important, programmers know about them even if they are not in production use, these languages fill gaps between various approaches and paradigms, so they can't be ignored by Wikipedia even if there is not enough media coverage, because otherwise Wikipedia can't provide a full picture to a curious reader. Merge can also be considered, but I'm afraid it's impossible to make a readable page that merges several very different languages, and it's not clear how to merge them - either to term-rewriting languages, or functional languages, or macro languages - there is no single category that fits a language better than another. The best approach would be having separate pages for each language, and references from all categories (the way it is now). Disclaimer: I'm not a stakeholder of any of these languages, I'm a C++ programmer. Enerjazzer (talk) 00:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Retract. I'm retracting this AfD for obvious reasons.... Christopher Monsanto (talk) 15:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, as there has been 1 other Delete vote, this AfD can't be unilaterally withdrawn anymore. --Cyber cobra (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Another secondary source. This is an article in the German iX magazine: Michael Riepe. Rein ins Vergnügen : Pure – eine einfache funktionale Sprache. iX 12/2009, p. 147. Online at: http://www.heise.de/ix/artikel/Rein-ins-Vergnuegen-856225.html (in German). Ag (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I should add that iX is a professional IT magazine, published (in paper form) by Heise, see iX (magazine). Ag (talk) 23:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Meh Would need more sources, but it has enough to write a short article. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.