I have a ~/bin directory (which is on my PATH) where I store a lot of little 1 or 2 line scripts. Some of them just cd into a directory and run a command on a file, like vim or something. But I also have a lot of aliases in my .bash_aliases file which serve the same purpose. How do you decide between writing a little bash script and writing an alias? Does it matter at all which way you go? 
Do you prefer bash scripts or aliases for shortcuts?
shell script;scripting;alias