Re: Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 25.05.10 15:47, George Orwell wrote:
>> GNAT is written in Ada, after being drafted in SETL;
>> a precursor of GNAT was Ada/Ed, an Ada interpreter.
>> This is what I remember from reading GNAT history.
> 
> Yes, everybody knows GNAT was written in GNAT. But GNAT is not Ada, it's
> just one implementation, and it is not by any means the first.

Yes.  Ada/Ed, though, being an Ada 83 interpreter, being
written in SETL, not C, and being prototypical for GNAT,
indicates that C is not necessarily the single language for
writing high class compilers---as some have implied.
I'm sure you know that is the case for some other languages,
too.
GNAT is one compiler where everyone can convince themselves,
since the sources are open to the public.

Some more hints, all signifying nothing,
absent more reputable positive findings:

- DEC Ada living in an architecture that is decidedly
  not Unix, and less C centric

- Rational, offering Ada/Apex long before they added C++

- Alsys Ada being compared to Occam on the T800 Transputer

- Mentionings of counts of pragma Assert (and other Ada terms)
  in compiler source, not just in GNAT, but also in Janus/Ada,
  and, IIRC IBM Ada (formerly Rational).

Would they all have been using C (K&R C, that is) on non-C
platforms nevertheless, for implementing their compilers?