This Ada Lovelace Day, we are celebrating what has been a positive year for the Ada Programming Language, and we ask ourselves, what would Ada think? Proud? We’d say so.

Ada Lovelace and Ada

The United States Department of Defense honored Ada’s seminal work in computing by choosing the name “Ada” in 1979 for its common high-order computer programming language. This language, with its focus on software engineering, is a fitting tribute to her accomplishments.

Why Ada?

Ada is a powerful language for developing safe, reliable, high-performance software. Its combination of strong typing, memory safety, efficient code generation, and precise low-level control makes it an ideal choice for high-integrity systems.

As an imperative, procedural language, Ada feels familiar to developers with experience in C, C++, or Rust. It also offers modern object-oriented features and support for contemporary programming paradigms. Memory safety is a core aspect of Ada. The language’s compile-time accessibility checks and automatic run-time protection prevent unsafe pointer dereferencing and out-of-bounds array access. It also includes a built-in contract language that allows functional safety properties to be checked dynamically during execution.

Designed for embedded systems, Ada generates efficient, compact code without relying on a run-time interpreter or garbage collector. It supports both full operating systems and bare-metal targets, with features for dynamic memory allocation, concurrency, and precise data representation and layout control. Ada’s strong typing model further enhances software reliability by ensuring that types are explicitly defined, associated with meaningful properties, and checked for consistency both statically and dynamically. This robust type system enables early detection of errors and contributes to the overall integrity and maintainability of the software.

So what has happened with Ada in 2025?

In 2025, Ada has seen a notable resurgence in popularity: it climbed into the top ten of the TIOBE Programming Community Index, reaching its highest-ever ranking (9th place in July 2025). (TechRepublic)

Just a year earlier, Ada was much lower (around 24th). (TechRepublic) This upward trend indicates renewed attention from the software engineering community.

Several factors may help explain this rise. First, there is increasing demand for memory-safe and secure programming in critical systems - domains in which Ada has long-standing credentials. (The AdaCore Blog) As companies and governments emphasise software supply-chain integrity, languages that help prevent common vulnerability classes (e.g., buffer overflows, invalid pointers) gain appeal.

Second, Ada’s reputation in safety-critical, defence, aerospace, and embedded markets still carries weight. Its decades of use, toolchains, certifications, and ecosystem provide proven assurance in regulated environments, which newer languages often lack. (InfoWorld)

Third, the general trend toward revisiting mature, battle-tested languages may be working in Ada’s favour. Some analysts suggest that, as newer languages struggle with real-world adoption for high-assurance systems, engineers look back toward languages with proven reliability. (InfoWorld)

While popularity indices such as TIOBE have limitations (they reflect search volume and web activity, not necessarily actual usage), Ada’s strong performance in 2025 is a meaningful signal. It suggests that interest is growing and that Ada is being reconsidered for new projects in domains where safety, security, and reliability are essential.

Back to Ada Lovelace

If Ada Lovelace could see the language that bears her name today, she would likely be delighted to witness its renewed relevance. More than a century after her pioneering insights into computing, the Ada programming language continues to embody the principles she championed: precision, foresight, and innovation.

References:

TechRepublic (2025). TIOBE Index: Ada reaches the top 10 for the first time in 2025. Retrieved from: https://www.techrepublic.com/a...

AdaCore Blog (2024). Ada is back in the TIOBE Index Top 20. Retrieved from: https://blog.adacore.com/ada-i...

InfoWorld (2025). Ada and other mature languages vie for top spots in the TIOBE Index. Retrieved from: https://www.infoworld.com/arti...