Conclusion

All the usual paradigms of imperative programming can be found in all three languages that we surveyed in this document. However, Ada is different from the rest in that it's more explicit when expressing properties and expectations. This is a good thing: being more formal affords better communication among programmers on a team and between programmers and machines. You also get more assurance of the coherence of a program at many levels. Ada can help reduce the cost of software maintenance by shifting the effort to creating a sound system the first time, rather than working harder, more often, and at greater expense, to fix bugs found later in systems already in production. Applications that have reliability needs, long term maintenance requirements, or safety/security concerns are those for which Ada has a proven track record.

It's becoming increasingly common to find systems implemented in multiple languages, and Ada has standard interfacing facilities to allow Ada code to invoke subprograms and/or reference data structures from other language environments, or vice versa. Use of Ada thus allows easy interfacing between different technologies, using each for what it's best at.

We hope this guide has provided some insight into the Ada software engineer's world and has made Ada more accessible to programmers already familiar with programming in other languages.