F (programming language)

F is a compiled, modular, numeric programming language designed for scientific computation and numerical research, developed by the Fortran Company as what its creators described as a modern Fortran. F is defined as a carefully chosen subset of Fortran 95, deliberately kept small, with only about one hundred intrinsic procedures, so that it remains easy to learn and teach while still supporting the array programming, procedural programming and modular programming styles that scientific and engineering programmers expect from a Fortran family language. The language incorporates numerical and data abstraction features drawn from later Fortran standards while maintaining backward compatibility with programs written in the older Fortran 77 dialect, letting existing scientific codebases migrate toward F without a complete rewrite. F uses a static, manifest typing discipline, meaning variable types are fixed and explicit rather than inferred dynamically at run time, which suits the predictable, performance sensitive numerical computing tasks the language targets. Several compiler vendors implemented F over the years, including NAG, Fujitsu, Salford Software and Absoft, and F support was later folded into the open source g95 compiler project, extending the language's availability to programmers working outside the original commercial compiler vendors.