Numeric Scripts

I’m often starting new small projects, especially ones that involve web scraping. This habit of gathering one off odd datasets has come in handy a few times when I want to back an opinion up by fact.

Since I only check in on these projects rarely, I typically forget the end to end flow of how to run each step (such as scrape -> parse -> scrape -> parse -> clean up data), which I tend to split into separate scripts.

I’ve started using a “numeric script” approach. scrape_links.py, parselinksfor_urls.py, check_links.py, and extract_links.py on their own have an ambiguous flow, while the following makes it much easier for me to remember:

1. 01scrapelinks.py
2. 02checklinks.py
3. 03extractlinks.py
4. 04parselinksforurls.py

I could of course write a quick README stating the order, but this approach is ✨ self-documenting ✨.