The thing that I keep finding myself wanting in Python is a more structured way to refer to data; fortunately, that's what namedtuple[1] is for.

    >>> DataType = namedtuple("DataType", ["field1", "field2"])
    >>> datum = DataType(1, "a")
    >>> datum
    DataType(field1=1, field2='a')
    >>> datum.field1
    1
    >>> datum.field2
    2

Keeps my code a bit more sensible than constantly indexing into tuples, imo.

[1]: http://docs.python.org/2/library/collections.html#collection...