Topic/lukev/improvements

[upenn-cis551]

• Auto-create directories (BASE_PATH, ARCHIVE_PATH, BREAKS_PATH, etc.) in bibifi-periodic/periodic.py when they do not already exist. These directories should either be created automatically when they don't exist, or the periodic.py script should exit with a message that the directories don't exist.
• Catch TypeError bug. This came up when a student messed with their git history causing the periodic.py script to look for a non-existent treeish, which caused it to crash.
• Fix some comments: aws -> cloud

[jprider63]

Thanks @ltv511! I'm sort of leaning towards the case where we check ahead of time and exit when these directories don't exist. That way if the user accidentally provides the wrong options, they get an error rather than silently creating the directories where they don't expect. I can also imagine scenarios where data ends up split between multiple locations.

Do you want to implement this? If not, could you add another commit that reverts makedirs back to mkdir?

[lukevalenta]

Sure! I’m traveling with limited internet access for the next two weeks, but can implement this when I’m back.