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Two More Very General Consulting Question

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Things are moving alone with respect to the contract that I mentioned in 
another thread. We're still in initial discussions but it feels 
promising. Two basic questions have come up.

--

First question: They are asking about my availability.

If the truth be told, I have nothing else on my plate right now except 
looking for work and there is nothing in the short term future either. 
I'd like to say "I can dedicate myself to your project 100% starting 
tomorrow morning" but am concerned that this may make me look bad. They 
might well get the impression that I am so awful at what I do that I 
can't find any customers.  

Is there a good way to answer the availability question that basically 
says I can give them my full attention immediately without making me look 
like I'm really inept?

--

Second question: They are asking for examples of Java work that I have 
done. 

Unfortunately, I don't have much paid work to show him. A complicating 
factor is that, while I keep copies of the code I've written forever, I 
had a hard drive crash a couple of years back in which I've lost a fair 
bit of my code.

I can only recall doing two paying Java contracts so far. 

The more recent contract I did got cancelled during the development cycle 
due to cost issues and was never implemented. The non-disclosure 
agreement for that work is still presumably in effect so I couldn't show 
them the code which I still have even if I want to. I could contact that 
customer and find out if the NDA is still valid and I'm sure I'd get a 
quick answer. Should I do that?

An earlier example of paid code was a Java applet that I did as a 
subcontract for a friend a while back. He had written a Lotus Notes 
application and wanted an applet to do graphing of performance 
characteristics of the customer's products. That Lotus Notes page was 
gone the last time I went to the website several years ago so the applet 
is also presumably long gone, replaced by something else. I didn't sign 
an NDA as far as I recall but the friend who gave me the contract may 
have. I can find out easily enough but the applet would be pretty crude 
by any modern standards even if the NDA wasn't an issue. I hadn't been 
coding Java long and Swing wasn't even out yet so it is in AWT. (I later 
made a Swing version but it's never been run outside of my IDE.)

If unpaid work can constitute a reasonable example - and I personally 
think it should - I did one decent Java application and a servlet for a 
friend for an NGO he was involved in for free, strictly out of interest 
in doing it. However, he left the organization shortly after that and 
they abandoned the work I'd done when he left. I didn't sign an NDA for 
that work but I'm not sure if I should feel free to show the code to 
someone else. That's assuming I didn't lose that code in the crash.

Aside from that, all the code I've got which survived the hard drive 
crash, is code I've written for myself that has never really seen the 
light of day outside of my IDE or isn't likely to be of interest to him 
since he wants an application, not a servlet. I've got a few complete 
programs, most of which are not very good in terms of style and design. 
Should I offer him the best of those?

Or am I best to confess my relative inexperience and hope for the best?

I haven't claimed any great expertise yet - and don't intend to - but I 
don't particularly want to emphasize how little paying Java experience I 
have either. What's my best way forward?

-- 
Novice

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Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 21:00 +0000
  Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-11-30 21:45 +0000
    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 23:00 +0000
      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-01 03:06 +0000
        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-12-06 15:24 +0000
          Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-06 20:59 +0000
      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-07 05:45 -0800
        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-07 18:58 +0000
          Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-07 18:57 -0500
            Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-07 20:33 -0400
              Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-08 16:04 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-09 06:53 -0400
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-09 12:51 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com> - 2011-12-09 17:26 +0100
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-09 23:12 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-10 12:00 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-10 19:53 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-11 00:04 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-10 20:12 +0000
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2011-12-12 03:05 -0700
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-12 06:39 -0400
            Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-12-07 20:55 -0600
              Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-09 10:42 +0000
        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-07 18:48 -0500
    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-07 05:43 -0800
  Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-02 20:15 -0500
  Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-06 16:45 -0800

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