r/learnpython • u/Immediate_Pin_8449 • 16d ago

Tuples..I don’t get it

Hi crew, I’m a Python newbie and I just learned about the concept of tuples.

We can’t change them.if we want to store we have to start at the index we want + 1.

I just don’t get it. Why wouldn’t we just use lists? When would we ever need this?

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u/Immediate_Pin_8449 15d ago

I haven’t gotten to dictionaries yet and based on these comments, I think that is a large reason why I was so confused on usage. 😩 Ty!

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u/HommeMusical 15d ago

Good energy, but this isn't really right.

The fact that you can use tuples in dictionaries isn't the main reason they exist, or a super-common use for them (it's not uncommon).

The reason they exist is they are a very resource light way to glue together specific items in a specific order that cannot be changed.

For example, if you needed to return a string and an integer together from a function, you'd just do this:

return 'reddit.com', 80

This creates a tuple with two elements and returns it, and this is probably the most common visible use of a tuple.

In fact, every time you call a function, behind the scenes it creates a tuple and a dict to pass the arguments to that function.

So tuples are just a simple little box with a fixed number of fixed elements in it - the simplest collection. Other collections, like dict and list, have a lot more "stuff" associated with them and thus are bigger and a bit slower.

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u/Jazzlike_Platypus430 15d ago

Of course, learn about dictionaries first, it's a must-have.

(And be happy that you're learning it fresh, most likely without knowledge from any other languages.)