>>>>> "GvR" == Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes: GvR> There's still Neil's isinstance(x, (str, unicode)) which gives GvR> the programmer more freedom: maybe some function wants to GvR> support lists and tuples but not all sequences. GvR> I'm currently +1 on introducing names for abstract base classes GvR> *and* extensing isinstance()'s API. +1. Jeremy