pure

But pure? Purity is a marketing lie.

See also pure and unsweetened.

PURE

Acronym for Pseudo-code Universally Readable for Examinations.

Developed by IBCA for use within the International Baccalaureate (IB) Computer Science course. (See also IBO).

Its main purposes are to present algorithms to students during examinations in a standardized and coherent manner, and to give students guidelines for answering problems requiring algorithmic solutions. However, in their answers, students need not adhere completely to the syntax outlined in the syllabus.

PURE includes such conventions as writing reserved words in lower-case, bold-faced text, whereas names of programs, libraries, user-defined data structures, constants, variables, subprograms, and functions (subprograms returning a single value as opposed to returning no value; PURE differentiates between subprograms and functions).

Being designed for such a formal purpose, PURE is generally stricter than ordinary pseudocode, but areas such as I/O, file access, and library functions are still relatively arbitrary, so as to ensure a high degree of portability of PURE-represented algorithmic solutions.

In the internally assessed portfolio project, which is part of the IB CS course, PURE is a stipulated step of the development process.

PURE is also an excellent example of the Anglo-Saxon practice of creating contrived titles for things in order to have a "cool" acronym for it (see backronym).

Example:

Assuming DATAFILE is declared as a file of a defined record type with a field of type integer, called NUMBER, and that this file is open:

function BINARY_SEARCH(val SEARCH integer, val BEGINNING integer, val END integer)
   result integer

   declare CURRENT, POSITION integer

   CURRENT <-- BEGINNING + truncate((END - BEGINNING + 1)/2)

   moveto(DATAFILE, CURRENT)

   if SEARCH < DATAFILE.NUMBER then
      END <-- CURRENT - 1
   elsif SEARCH = DATAFILE.NUMBER then
      BEGINNING <-- CURRENT
      END <-- CURRENT
   elsif SEARCH > FIL_CD.NAME then
      BEGINNING <-- CURRENT
   endif

   if not END = BEGINNING then /* continue the search */
      BEGINNING <-- BINARY_SEARCH(SEARCH, BEGINNING, END)
   endif

   return BEGINNING
endfunction BINARY_SEARCH

"Pure" is a novel by Rebbecca Ray, and it was a huge success for young girls and women that remember what it's like to be a young girl. In Britain, where it was originally published by Penguin Books in 1998, it went by the name "A Certain Age", but it was republished in America as "Pure". The new title is ironic, I guess, because none of the characters are really pure or innocent. It's real life... the real life of what it means to be 14 (for some anyway).

Rebbecca Ray dropped out of school, which was doing nothing for her intellectually, to write the novel. It was published when she was 18, and literary fame soon followed. Critics and readers loved the book because it was raw and vivid. Instead of a 30-something writer reliving the life of a teenager, Rebbecca Ray wrote about being a teenager when she was still a teen. The back cover reads:

An accomplished novel that made it's young author a sensation, Pureis about fourteen--the age when you know everything, except when you don't know anything. It's about first love and the end of innocence, and realizing your family perhaps isn't as happy or your parents as together as you thought. It's about the cool friend for whom everything seems effortless, and the impossible embarrassing friend you're nice to when your cool friends can't see. It's about the twenty-seven-year-old man who flirts with you when he sells your dad your overpriced birthday stereo--except he actually calls. And it's about what happens after.

Although it is an accurate description, it is perhaps over-simplified. The popularity revolves around the reality of it all. The main character, a girl that remains nameless, may not relate to you directly, but you have met people like her. You know her. Parents have read this book and become shocked. It's scary, unrealistic fiction. A fourteen-year-old doesn't do drugs. A fourteen-year-old doesn't give her boyfriend hand jobs during her lunch break... But to fourteen-year-olds reading the book, it is not shocking. It is life, plain and simple.

The book catches one's attention right away with the first line, "I was about thirteen when I started letting boys feel me up." From there, it's an easy yet captivating read. Though her art may not be perfected, Rebbecca Ray has an ease for writing. She knows what she's doing. The structure of the novel is especially interesting. Instead of chapters, each containing some meaningful drama and an open-ended transition to the next chapter, the book is completely chapter-less! There are of course some page breaks in between scenes, but that's all. I like this feature. It allowed me to pick up the book and put it down with ease. It also made the book seem more realistic. Life is not normally laid out in easy to follow transitions, one leading to the next. Also, the lack of chapters allowed Rebbecca to use a sort of stream of consciousness attitude. One action would sometimes lead to a memory, which would lead to an analysis as to why the action may have happened to begin with. It all allows an easy way to relate and sympathize with the characters.

Also, another realistic adaptation was the fact that the main character remains nameless. It gives you the feeling that she is actually telling the story to you and you alone. Is the main character Rebbecca, you might wonder. She says that the book is by no means an autobiography, but she does acknowledge the fact that fourteen was an age of sex and drugs.

Anyway, I think all young writers that want to be a novelist should give this book a go. Although it may not be the best thing ever written, it's inspirational to think that someone so young could write something so powerful. It's not a typical teen novel. It's much better than that random crap you can pick up at the bookstore (i.e. Sweet Valley High). This book has some completely unexpected events that I wouldn't dare to reveal, and... and just read it. It's a good weekend book, 400 or so pages that take you back to a time when life was simple yet nothing ever made any sense.

I'm sure that we will hear more about this author. Currently she is working on her second novel, which is expected to be more complex than the first. Since "Pure" she has also written for the New Puritans.

Pure (?), a. [Compar. Purer (?); superl. Purest.] [OE. pur, F. pur, fr. L. purus; akin to putus pure, clear, putare to clean, trim, prune, set in order, settle, reckon, consider, think, Skr. p to clean, and perh. E. fire. Cf. Putative.]

1.

Separate from all heterogeneous or extraneous matter; free from mixture or combination; clean; mere; simple; unmixed; as, pure water; pure clay; pure air; pure compassion.

The pure fetters on his shins great. Chaucer.

A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy. I. Watts.

2.

Free from moral defilement or quilt; hence, innocent; guileless; chaste; -- applied to persons.

1 Tim. v. 22.

Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience. 1 Tim. i. 5.

3.

Free from that which harms, vitiates, weakens, or pollutes; genuine; real; perfect; -- applied to things and actions.

Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records. Macaulay.

4. Script.

Ritually clean; fitted for holy services.

Thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. Lev. xxiv. 6.

5. Phonetics

Of a single, simple sound or tone; -- said of some vowels and the unaspirated consonants.

Pure-impure, completely or totally impure. "The inhabitants were pure-impure pagans." Fuller. -- Pure blue. Chem. See Methylene blue, under Methylene. -- Pure chemistry. See under Chemistry. -- Pure mathematics, that portion of mathematics which treats of the principles of the science, or contradistinction to applied mathematics, which treats of the application of the principles to the investigation of other branches of knowledge, or to the practical wants of life. See Mathematics. Davies & Peck (Math. Dict. ) -- Pure villenage FeudalLaw, a tenure of lands by uncertain services at the will of the lord. Blackstone.

Syn. -- Unmixed; clear; simple; real; true; genuine; unadulterated; uncorrupted; unsullied; untarnished; unstained; stainless; clean; fair; unspotted; spotless; incorrupt; chaste; unpolluted; undefiled; immaculate; innocent; guiltless; guileless; holy.

© Webster 1913.