newbie inquiry

["Steven Shaw" <steve.shaw@uq.net.au>]

Recently, I've been reading about Modula-3. I got exciting about it but
recently found out that it's pretty much dead. Ada, on the other hand, has
been around awhile and recently because part of the "standard" GCC distro.
I'm hoping that Ada can be my m3. I'm quite new to Ada. I've read the
lovelace tutorial and found some other useful material (but I haven't read
it all yet). There's alot of info out there... If there are any comparisons
with m3 that would be useful for me.

Features I kinda know Ada has (but might be wrong)
    * modules
    * fixed string and dynamically growing strings (excellent)
    * generics

Features I'm hoping Ada has:
    * gc
    * multiple interface inheritence (like Java, m3 doesn't have it)
    * fast language interoperability with C (ffi and data sharing)
    * ability to put data/objects into shared-memory for sharing between
processes
    * speed of C?
    * libraries for database access, sockets/protocols, xml

I read somewhere that Ada doesn't have GC. I think I heard that gnat
supports gc. How does this work out for you? Does this mean you have to use
free() when using the standard library?

Would Ada be as good a choice as C for writing an OS? a dbms?

The Ada spec is very big. Is it all implemented in gnats? Are there features
in the spec that could/should be avoided?

cheers,
Steve.