I'd be more than willing to give Ada a chance, but when I looked at code samples I definitely had to fight an automatic response of thinking it was something out of date based on how it looks.
It's not that there aren't successful languages and have a different look and feel, it's that there's pushback against them when they are targeted towards the niches C and C++ are already strong in. Obviously many languages exist and many have become popular, but certain niches are more resistant than others and sometimes it's for non-rational reasons.
> I'd be more than willing to give Ada a chance, but when I looked at code samples I definitely had to fight an automatic response of thinking it was something out of date based on how it looks.
That's part, but not all, of what I'm talking about. The style C follows is damn old itself, sometimes predating the languages you're thinking of as out of date.
I think one big stumbling block people had in adopting ADA (along with there not being a good open source toolchain for a long while as noted here) is that it just looks different to people that primarily use C and similar languages, and that puts some people off.
That's sad, and I would rather it not be true, but it's become increasingly obvious to me from how people treat numerous newer languages I've seen pop up over the years.