Strings and Lists

[Tom Longridge]

My current Python project involves lots repeatating code blocks,
mainly centred around a binary string of data. It's a genetic
algorithm in which there are lots of strings (the chromosomes) which
get mixed, mutated and compared a lot.

Given Python's great list processing abilities and the relative
inefficiencies some string operations, I was considering using a list
of True and False values rather than a binary string.

I somehow doubt there would be a clear-cut answer to this, but from
this description, does anyone have any reason to think that one way
would be much more efficient than the other? (I realise the best way
would be to do both and `timeit` to see which is faster, but it's a
sizeable program and if anybody considers it a no-brainer I'd much
rather know now!)

Any advice would be gladly recieved.