The first project sounds like you just thought of a really clever caching mechanism :) if the data rarely changes and the cache is still valid then why not, I t

The first project sounds like you just thought of a really clever caching mechanism :) if the data rarely changes and the cache is still valid then why not, I think you did find the “proper” way to do it! As programmers we tend to want to generalize a lot, when in fact you can get to 80% of solving the real pain of a task with the first 20% of the work. The rest of the work can usually be done by a human much faster and with more trust than a three-thousand-if-elif-else solution would get.