> If Adacore had published a full featured free compiler for students/universities by the time Ada 95...
Didn't they? I wasn't around then, so I'm working with what information I can find online. According to Wikipedia it was fully validated in 1995[1], and I'm pretty sure it was always a free compiler based on GCC. I think the dust had settled on the battlefield of the language wars long before Ada 95. It was/is still common for European universities to teach Ada as part of the computer science curriculum. That still hasn't managed to give Ada the industry presence it deserves. In my opinion it's by far the superior language. It's just losing out for human reasons.
> ...gigantic industry sponsor e.g. golang...
It had the biggest industry sponsor at one stage: The US Department of Defense. Back in the late 70s, and early 80s when the DoD was directly sponsoring Ada's development, they had incredibly deep pockets. I'd say this is why Ada is so comprehensive today. They had the money, and motivation to design the language by committee down to the most minor details.
I guess that prior to the FSF releasing GNAT, and the DoD dropping its Ada mandate, compiler vendors had a captive audience, and could charge a serious premium for their software.
I've read that the hardware required to use an Ada compiler was far more expensive than its competitors as well. I've heard more than one person say that this was a serious barrier to its adoption in the wider industry.
Didn't they? I wasn't around then, so I'm working with what information I can find online. According to Wikipedia it was fully validated in 1995[1], and I'm pretty sure it was always a free compiler based on GCC. I think the dust had settled on the battlefield of the language wars long before Ada 95. It was/is still common for European universities to teach Ada as part of the computer science curriculum. That still hasn't managed to give Ada the industry presence it deserves. In my opinion it's by far the superior language. It's just losing out for human reasons.
> ...gigantic industry sponsor e.g. golang...
It had the biggest industry sponsor at one stage: The US Department of Defense. Back in the late 70s, and early 80s when the DoD was directly sponsoring Ada's development, they had incredibly deep pockets. I'd say this is why Ada is so comprehensive today. They had the money, and motivation to design the language by committee down to the most minor details.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNAT