While one can choose to dismiss the TIOBE index (I don’t have any strong opinion about it), there was also a screen shot of PYPL showing a steady increase in Ada over recent months. Something positive is happening!
A few days ago, I had ChatGPT compare Rust and Ada. It tended to penalize Ada for its runtime checks and access values (aka pointers). However, ChatGPT didn't account for the fact that many of Ada's runtime checks would need to be manually implemented by developers in other languages. An Ada compiler, can often optimizes these checks away, knowing where they're genuinely needed and where they can be removed. This often explains why speed comparisons between C and Ada code can be misleading, as they rarely factor in the extra manual effort required to make C code equivalently robust with necessary safety checks.
Regarding access values, I listed out some of Ada's various restrictions. Its scope rules prevent referencing objects at deeper levels, objects must be explicitly marked aliased to create an access value to them, and there's far less need for access values (for instance, no pointers are needed to pass parameters by reference). Additionally, Ada offers the ability to dynamically size some objects and reclaim their memory without explicit memory allocation.
After I highlighted these details, ChatGPT admitted it had unfairly evaluated Ada, concluding it's a very safe and robust language, albeit using different techniques than Rust.
I recall watching a presentation about C++20. During the presentation, the presenter said there were about 163 undefined behaviors in the C language (note: I think it was C99) which implied there were many more in C++ since it’s a much more complex language. Unfortunately, I don’t have a link to that presentation.
You might have heard about the SPARK variant of Ada. I recall reading in an article many years ago that the original version of SPARK was based on Ada83 because it is a very safe language with a lot less undefined behaviors, which is key to trying to statically prove the correctness of a program.
I haven't used Rust, but many of the comments and articles I have read about the benefits of the language and the strong desire for develop robust and/or safe software are virtually the same as what Ada supporters have been claiming for decades.
It's a good thing more people are realizing we really need to stop settling for C and C++, stop investing more money into tools that simply compensate for the weak foundation of those languages, and finally adopt safer alternatives.
This! I have mainly programmed in C in my career (note: I also have experience with C++ on multiple projects and to a lesser extent with C# and Java). In almost all the embedded projects I have been on, Ada would have been a far better choice because it would have helped avoid whole classes of common software bugs and thus less costly to maintain. This is especially true with bugs reports and vulnerabilities that would be discovered on systems that were already deployed.
People normally think that C is the best for low level embedded programing, but from my experience, it pales in comparison to the amount of low level control and type safety that Ada provides, even when you restrict yourself to a small subset of the language (note: Ada is often used on barebone systems and without an Ada runtime). Given the interoperability Ada has with C, it means you don't have to rewrite everything in order to incorporate it into existing code bases.
Regarding the collaboration between AdaCore and Ferrocene, the effort is to produce a Rust toolset that is qualified for safety critical usage (e.g. verification of object code that is produced, etc). That is _not_ the same as bringing SPARK-like language capabilities to Rust. I think too many people get that confused.
The fact that you originally didn’t know that Ada is heavily used in embedded clearly shows you don’t know it. Even though you edited your reply, any reader should seriously doubt your claim that “certain things are quite difficult” in Ada. Do you know that in Ada, you don’t have to use pointers or heap memory nearly as much as other languages such as C and C++? You can even write programs that don’t even use any. That avoids a whole class of issues.
One of the extra advantages with Ada is that you can decide to utilize the SPARK variant and do formal proofs on software components that are more critical. I invite you and and others to watch the presentation by Altrans where they talk about 30+ years of SPARK usage to help develop ultra low defect software: https://youtu.be/VKPmBWTxW6M
I'm aware of it, and I'm not aware of anyone using it for proprietary software in the kinds of projects where Ada would come up in discussion. FSF GNAT + Alire are fine as a hobbyist toy and for open source, but they're not in contention for [workjob]. FSF GNAT isn't just unsupported, but also very thinly documented. And that's if you're only targeting Linux or Windows on x86, and not embedded devices with a cross-compiler you need to build yourself.
The basic Windows / Linux versions of the cheapest commercial Ada package only recently dropped to high 4-figures / seat. The equivalent cross-compilers are still $$,$$$.
I don't know Python, Go, or nodejs, but with regard to general purpose programming, you can look at some of the free tools and libraries on AdaIC (https://www.adaic.org/ada-resources/tools-libraries/). There is a man named Gautier, who actively develops a variety of tools (e.g. 3D gfx, Excel file producer, games, code editors, etc). Check out his blog page: https://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Ada
