I've heard Modula-3 (from DEC SRC and Olivetti Research Center) called "the Ada regular programmers would adopt". They never did, of course, because Olivetti decided research wasn't that important and DEC got bought and a lot of other reasons that are documented elsewhere. Not to get into a language pissing contest, but IMO it's an awfully nice way to program, with threading built in, type safety, generics, a reasonable GC, exceptions, etc. I really enjoyed it, but then I think Ada brings a lot to the table. What might have been, indeed.