Regarding 'why did Ada not manage to get a significant foothold outside of some small domains?' here are some factors that were relevant at that time (late 80s

Regarding 'why did Ada not manage to get a significant foothold outside of some small domains?' here are some factors that were relevant at that time (late 80s to early 90s): * The internet was either practically non-existent, or in its infancy. At that time, getting compilers, documentation, and sample code was much more difficult and time consuming. * I recall there being a fair bit of criticism about Ada being 'designed by committee' and having a reputation as such. * C was still shining brightly and overall well-liked. C++ being an improved C, was seen as a very desirable new language for the software development community.