The thing that Ada and its peers lack that Rust has already tackled is finding a strong foothold in OSS. Doubtless there are more lines of Ada than Rust in the wild, but in 30 years of use the only OSS Ada project I can name is GNAT itself, whereas anyone using e.g. Firefox or VSCode is using Rust despite it being ten times younger. Given that most new developers these days seem to learn to program via OSS, and given that HN is largely OSS-focused, it's no surprise that Rust gets mentioned more.
You're missing the qualifier of "production ready". While I'd argue that Ada was indeed "production ready" language wise, I'd say that it's not with respect to libraries, of which, OSS contributes a whole bunch.
For some people, a good library selection is essential to being "production ready".
We must think about quite different things behind "systems programming" if you
need libraries for it. For me system implements and provides interface,
not uses it. Like in operating system.
And then, Ada had a selection of libraries for a long time. You just
conveniently forget about the paid ones, so you can call Ada "not production
ready".
I wouldn't even say conveniently forgot, I'd say it didn't even cross my mind. It is perhaps also representative of why people don't consider Ada when picking out a language.
That said, I agree that it'd be moving the goal posts to omit paid libraries.
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I do think we have slightly different ideas of "Systems Programming", or at least what production ready means for that type of language. I think it boils down to the fact that people do a lot more in "Systems Programming" languages than just OS or implementing and providing interfaces. Specifically, people do it for performance and control, which I don't necessarily excludes the use of libraries.
I think the contention here is that people are thinking of production ready for these types of languages in terms of general use, not just the niche you describe. In retrospect, I do think it was a poor way to word it.
I guess I'd probably amend the original comment to say something like "Rust is the first production ready systems programming language that can comfortably (after a learning curve) be used at higher levels".
It's not irrelevant. Ada provided safe, production ready language for systems
programming long before Rust, so this part of explaination is simply false.
I wouldn't say it's simply false, just that it requires a bit more explanation. Ada is a safe systems language, but is more restricted in what can safely be expressed.
While you are right, it would also be good to learn the history of computing in a proper way, instead of re-writing it based on urban myths and perceptions.
