In python, what's the best way to test if a variable contains a list or a tuple? (ie. a collection) Is isinstance() as evil as suggested here? http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/isinstance/ Update: the most common reason I want to distinguish a list from a string is when I have some indefinitely deep nested tree / data-structure of lists of lists of lists of strings etc. which I'm exploring with a recursive algorithm and I need to know when I've hit the "leaf" nodes. Continue reading...
