[6thaccount2]

I really like the language, but the only compiler I'd trust is the adacore one and I imagine it is pretty pricey for commercial work

[pronoiac]

Why not FSF’s GNAT? It’s been a while since I used it, but I remember preferring its error messages to some commercial offering we had around.

[shakna]

SPARK [0], to put it simply. Contracts and static analysis rather than runtime checks takes Ada from being good to being great.

I do prefer GNAT's error messages over AdaCore's compilers (despite the compiler frontend still being based on GNAT), but SPARK adds a ton.

[0] I should note that SPARK 2014 is also available as a GPL'd "community" edition.

EDIT: Asterisk + HN formatting

[mjw1007]

AdaCore's compiler is GNAT.

They sell a pro version with bells and whistles but AFAIK the actual compiler is the same.

[6thaccount2]

You can't use a lot of the libraries and still get the runtime exception to where it doesn't have to be released as GPL I think.

[johnisgood]

GNAT Community version does not offer support for old versions of Ada, GNAT Pro does, but at the same time GCC's Ada (gcc-ada is the package for Arch Linux, for example) supports all versions of Ada. Funny that. I cannot say I am completely happy with the way they are trying to get money.

[pjmlp]

Why not the other remaining six vendors?