Ada never caught on, because its compilers were too expensive and no OS vendor included it on their standard SDK, thus hardly anyone would pay extra for additional languages beyond those on the SDK.
C++ caught on, because it came from AT&T and was embraced by C compiler vendors, thus landing in all OS SDKs.
Being part of a platform SDK is usually the path to fortune, for any language in platforms that manage to win widespread usage.
Ada was also too slow to compile with the computer systems of the day. I remember a HW company coming on site with a demo (contained on 9 track tape, of course). Compilation of a couple thousand lines of ada took all day (5+ hours). In that era, couple of thousand lines of fortran was 10 minutes. Big difference.
Ada was ahead of it's time. Still the language of choice when you care more about non-functional requirements.
Re:Breaking all the Eggs in C++ (2015)
by zozbot123 on Monday December 31, 2018 @12:56PM
(#18795836)
> Compilation of a couple thousand lines of ada took all day (5+ hours). In that era, couple of thousand lines of fortran was 10 minutes.
And a couple thousand lines of Turbo Pascal was 10 seconds! XD
I would imagine there are fewer new projects in C++ than, say, JavaScript, and fewer new projects in C++ than old projects in C++.
But C++ is absolutely still a live language! For the simple reason that there is no alternative which can work in all its significant niches (systems, realtime, embedded, HPC) and which is mature. Rust is on its way. D could be on its way. Ada never caught on widely, for some reason.