Tuples vs. variable-length argument lists

[Jean-Michel Pichavant]

Spencer Pearson wrote:
> Hi!
>
> This might be more of a personal-preference question than anything,
> but here goes: when is it appropriate for a function to take a list or
> tuple as input, and when should it allow a varying number of
> arguments? It seems as though the two are always interchangeable. For
> a simple example...
>
> def subtract( x, nums ):
>   return x - sum( nums )
>
> ... works equally well if you define it as "subtract( x, *nums )" and
> put an asterisk in front of any lists/tuples you pass it. I can't
> think of any situation where you couldn't convert from one form to the
> other with just a star or a pair of parentheses.
>
> Is there a generally accepted convention for which method to use? Is
> there ever actually a big difference between the two that I'm not
> seeing?
>   
FYI some linters report the usage of * as bad practice, I don't know the 
reason though. Pylint reports it as using 'magic'.
Anyway the form without * is commonly used.

JM