BTW you can get head and tail with plain old unpacking :) >>> head, *tail = range(3) >>> head 0 >>> tail [1, 2] Granted, unpacking also co

BTW you can get head and tail with plain old unpacking :) >>> head, *tail = range(3) >>> head 0 >>> tail [1, 2] Granted, unpacking also coalesces lazy iterables (like range in this case) into lists, but if you aren't working with large/infinite iterables you should be alright.