> What are the downside ADA? Mostly that very few people use it[1], which causes a kind inverse network effect, if you will. So finding people fluent in Ada is

> What are the downside ADA? Mostly that very few people use it[1], which causes a kind inverse network effect, if you will. So finding people fluent in Ada is more difficult than finding people fluent in more popular languages. Also, AFAIK the library situation is not very good. I guess this is not that much of a problem for embedded programming, but for building regular applications (like a web server or a DBMS) it kind of sucks. [1] Telling this from memory, and I am by no means an expert, so take this with a grain of salt. But I think part of the reason that Ada is not popular is that it acquired a reputation for being large and complicated early in its life. The last time I looked at Ada, it did not seem that complex compared to C++, but I guess the reputation has stuck. Also, for a while (I have no clue how long and right now I am too lazy too look it up) the language was trademarked/copyrighted/whatever by the Pentagon, and if you wanted to call the shiny new compiler you just wrote an Ada compiler, you had to submit it to the Pentagon for certification, which I assume was both expensive and slow. Therefore very few people outside the aerospace / DOD contractor sector used the language to begin with. It's a shame, really. It took me a while getting used to it, but once I got past that, I found it a very nice language (as long as I did not need much in the way of third party libraries).