Large Data Sets: Use base variables or classes? And some binding questions

[Patrick Sullivan]

Hello.

I will be using some large data sets ("points" from 2 to 12 variables)
and would like to use one class for each point rather than a list or
dictionary. I imagine this is terribly inefficient, but how much?

What is the cost of creating a new class?

What is the cost of referencing a class variable?

What is the cost of calling a class method to just return a variable?

Key point: The point objects, once created, and essentially non-
mutable. Static. Is there a way to "bind" a variable to a object
method in a way that is more efficient than the function calling
self.variable_name ?

I'll run some profile tests later today but if anyone has any cost/
efficiency of object creation in python, or any other idioms related
to variable creation, I'd greatly appreciate some links.

Thanks!

Patrick