Ada is the programming language named after Ada Lovelace, often described as the first computer programmer.
The U.S. Department of Defense sponsored Ada to improve software reliability and reduce the number of programming languages used in military systems. The language was designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah at CII-Honeywell-Bull.
Ada emphasizes strong typing, modularity, concurrency, and compile-time checking. These features make many programming mistakes easier to detect before a program runs, which is valuable in safety-critical and mission-critical software.
Ada was standardized in 1983 and later revised several times. The name honors Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, whose notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine included an algorithm for the machine.