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First task is getting some static data out of a few dusty html tables deep in the intranet and dumping it on a new table in the dev DBFor something like this, the first thing I'd do is extract the first row manually in Vim, recording my actions as a macro, then use that macro to extract the rest. That would take a few minutes tops, depending on the structure of the data it might take seconds or there might be a bit more massaging necessary, but no more than about 5 minutes for this step. I have a keybinding that maps execution of the macro in the q register to the spacebar to streamline this process; I double-tap q to start recording, press q again to stop recording, and press/hold the spacebar to execute that q macro. In my experience, 2 or 3 passes are usually enough to cleanly extract a table of data from some random HTML page.
If the job was a once-and-done, then I'm already done. If I am meant to be creating something that can be re-used later, then I still do the above anyway and now I have the result with which to test whatever more permanent solution I'm writing.