Upon reflection...

[Rod Weston]

Thanks everyone, for your assistance.  I have posted messages on
Ada, python and smalltalk groups for other perspectives and have
arrived at the following conclusions.

My objectives are to quickly learn and become productive in a language
that properly supports Object Oriented Programming.  I want to use
free or inexpensive toolsets and I want to have a market for my
efforts.  I want strong typing because I believe, having worked in a
language without typing, that it provides a strong deterrent to
serious errors.  I want a strong debugging tool, compile-time error
trapping and very strong exception handling.  I believe I have found
the best language to satisfy those objectives in Ada.  The real
bonuses in Ada are the ability to generate code that is capable of
communicating with JavaScript and Cobol (among others) and the speed
of execution, provided I use the 'right' compiler **(I'm open to a lot
more discussion of *that* topic)**.  So I have begun to assemble my
Win32 Ada95 environment with GNAT, EMACS, GRASP, AdaSQL, GLADE,
AdaCGI, GNATCOM, Lovelace, Learn Ada on the Web (LAW), Ada in Action
(online book), Dale Stanbrough's Introduction to Ada, and Introducing
Ada95 (Barnes).  I've also downloaded what seem to be the preeminent
source code libraries so I can see how the best go about programming
in Ada.  I mention these to encourage suggestions on a suitable
professional learning environment. 
What did I learn from the Python and Smalltalk groups?  That they each
love their environments, that Python is too slow for serious
consideration and that Smalltalk would be worthy of future
consideration as an additional language - if I were the type that
'collected' languages, which I am not.  Also, that Eiffel seems to be
an excellent pure OOP language, but no one seems to be using it for
professional development and, other than the distinction of being
'pure OOP', has no powerful arguments for its use over Ada.

Further discussion?