In a close combat situation, a 700-meter error can result in friendly casualties. Reliability is important. People who do not understand this should get out of the business. A 35 percent reduction is a significant improvement and worth serious consideration when selecting a programming language. The 88 percent reduction is probably an appropriate measure of Ada's impact on classroom assignments, which are done in a more controlled environment than real-world software.
Programming languages matter.
Compilers that do strong checking produce fewer run-time errors. There are entire classes of errors that some programming languages will not compile. Ada in Education Contrary to popular mythology, Ada is a remarkably easy language to learn. In the spring of 1996, a controlled experiment was conducted at the U.S. Military Academy. An introductory course was conducted with two instructors each teaching two sections using Ada and two sections using Pascal.