alt Hacker Newshttps://web.archive.org/web/20111219004314/http://journal.th... (referenced, at least tangentially, in the video) is a piece from the engineering lead which does a great job discussing Why C++. The short summary is "they couldn't find enough people to write Ada, and even if they could, they also couldn't find enough Ada middleware and toolchain."
I actually think Ada would be an easier sell today than it was back then. It seems to me that the software field overall has become more open to a wider variety of languages and concepts, and knowing Ada wouldn't be perceived as widely as career pidgeonholing today. Plus, Ada is having a bit of a resurgence with stuff like NVidia picking SPARK.
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The funny thing is the promise of Ada was "if it compiles it won't crash at runtime" which has a lot of overlap with Rust.
Yeah I find myself wishing it would take off again.
I’m sure I’m idealizing it, but at least I’m not demonizing it like folks did back in the day.
Given that there are still 7 vendors selling Ada compilers I always found that argument a bit disingenuous.
https://www.ghs.com/products/ada_optimizing_compilers.html
https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/apexada
https://www.ddci.com/solutions/products/ddci-developer-suite...
http://www.irvine.com/tech.html
http://www.ocsystems.com/w/index.php/OCS:PowerAda
http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/janus95/j-ada95.htm
What is true, is that those vendors, and many others, like UNIX vendors that used to have Ada compilers like Sun, paying for Ada compilers was extra, while C and C++ were already there on the UNIX developers SKU (a tradition that Sun started, having various UNIX SKUs).
So schools and many folks found easier to just buy a C or C++ compiler, than an Ada one, with its price tags.
Something that has helped Ada is the great work done by Ada Core, even if a few love hating them. They are the major sponsor for ISO work, and spreading Ada knowledge on the open source community.
> It seems to me that the software field overall has become more open to a wider variety of languages and concepts, and knowing Ada wouldn't be perceived as widely as career pidgeonholing today.
Are you sure? I cannot even find Ada in [0].
I tried modifying some Hello World example in Ada some weeks ago, and I cannot say that I liked the syntax. Some features were neat. I had some trouble with figuring out building and organizing files. Like C++, and unlike Rust I think, there are multiple source file types, like how C++ has header files. I also had trouble with some flags, but I was trying to use some experimental features, so I think that part was on me.
[0]: https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2025/06/18/language-rankings-1-2...
I've always strongly disliked this argument of not enough X programmers. If the DoD enforces the requirement for Ada, Universities, job training centers, and companies will follow. People can learn new languages. And the F35 and America's combat readiness would be in a better place today with Ada instead of C++.