> Combined with verification costs that don't vary that much from
> language to language, and there's a long future where, for
> safety-critical applications, there's no downside to C -- the cost
> of verification and analysis swamps the cost of writing the code
That doesn't sound right. You really want to get the code right early on. The later bugs are discovered, the more costly the fix. You may have to restart your testing, for instance.
If the language helps you avoid writing bugs in the first place, that should translate to quicker delivery and lower costs, as well as a reduced probability of bugs making it to production. The Ada folks are understandably keen to emphasise this in their promotional material.
> the cost of qualifying a new language's toolchain would be absurd
As I understand it, this typically falls to the compiler vendor, not to the people who use the compiler. A compiler vendor targeting safety-critical applications will want to get their compiler certified, e.g. [0]. To my knowledge we're nowhere near a certified Rust compiler, although it seems some folks are trying. [1]
If the language helps you avoid writing bugs in the first place, that should translate to quicker delivery and lower costs, as well as a reduced probability of bugs making it to production. The Ada folks are understandably keen to emphasise this in their promotional material.
As I understand it, this typically falls to the compiler vendor, not to the people who use the compiler. A compiler vendor targeting safety-critical applications will want to get their compiler certified, e.g. [0]. To my knowledge we're nowhere near a certified Rust compiler, although it seems some folks are trying. [1][0] https://www.ghs.com/products/compiler.html
[1] https://ferrous-systems.com/blog/sealed-rust-the-pitch/