Hi Fred ---

I agree with you. I think Michelle's biggest ally in this is her husband. If there is no real financial pressure to succeed right away, then she has the time to ramp up. Maybe even do a small volunteer application for a charity or church where she can get some practical experience in use cases, CRC, OOAD, and general consultancy issues.



> I agree with John Harvey for the most part. However, mastering is a relative term. It's My Opinion that a consultants should feel confident in what ever development tools they are using before stating that they provide consulting services with them. My first VB contract was to produce a guest login/logout tracking system for a manufacturing plant. A user could pull a list and see who was in plant and who left plant in case of emergency. It took a day to write and a very simplistic knowledge of VB.
>
>Network with other programmers in your area to see what type of contracts are available and follow John's suggetion on finding a part-time contract. I'm doing this now. I have 3 part-time contracts for about 20 hours per week plus my real job which is my steady pay check.
>
>Good Luck.