Python lists are similar to real-life lists. You can use them to store and organize a collection of objects, which can be of any data type. Instead of just storing one item, a list can hold multiple items while allowing manipulation and retrieval of those items. Because lists are mutable, you can think of them as being written in pencil. In other words, you can make changes.

Tuples, on the other hand, are written in ink. They’re similar to lists in that they can hold multiple items, but unlike lists, tuples are immutable, meaning you can’t modify them after you’ve created them.

In this video course, you’ll learn:

What lists and tuples are and how they’re structured
How lists and tuples differ from other data structures
How to define and manipulate lists and tuples in your Python code

By the end of this course, you’ll have a solid understanding of Python lists and tuples, and you’ll be able to use them effectively in your own programming projects.

This video course is part of the Python Basics series, which accompanies Python Basics: A Practical Introduction to Python 3. You can also check out the other Python Basics courses.

Note that you’ll be using IDLE to interact with Python throughout this course.

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Course Slides (.pdf)

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00:00 Welcome to this Python Basics course about tuples and lists.

00:05 You’ve learned about a bunch of fundamental data types at this point. You’ve learned about strings, integers, and floating-point numbers, for example. But what if you want to describe a collection of elements?

00:17 How do you combine several fundamental data types into something that’s more complex? Or, from another perspective, what if you have a bunch of lonely elements?

00:27 I mean, elements, don’t you just want to hug them all together? Hmm. Well, there are certain data structures in Python that can model such a collection of data.