When are immutable tuples *essential*? Why can't you just use lists *everywhere* instead?

[Luis M. González]

On Apr 20, 3:28 pm, Bjoern Schliessmann <usenet-
mail-0306.20.chr0n... at spamgourmet.com> wrote:
> Luis M. González wrote:
> > I don't remember exactly where I read about it, but Guido said
> > once that tuples are being kept mainly for historical reasons.
>
> Weren't tuples added when lists already existed?
>
> Regards,
>
> Björn
>
> --
> BOFH excuse #101:
>
> Collapsed Backbone

I tried googling for these comments, but I couldn't find them.
Perhaps I never read them and it was just my imagination...
Anyway, I suggest reading this chapter of "Dive into Python" for a
good explanation of the differences between tuples and lists:
http://diveintopython.org/native_data_types/tuples.html

The article explains that, amongst other things, tuples are faster
than lists, so if you are working with constant values (inmutables)
they are more indicated than lists.

luis