Could method "isinstance" take a list as parameter?

[ChenZHANG]

BPO	20415
Nosy	@mdickinson, @jwilk, @ezio-melotti, @iritkatriel

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2020-12-04.23:27:51.312>
created_at = <Date 2014-01-28.09:27:54.132>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Could method "isinstance" take a list as parameter?'
updated_at = <Date 2020-12-04.23:27:51.311>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/ChenZHANG'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-12-04.23:27:51.311>
actor = 'iritkatriel'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2020-12-04.23:27:51.312>
closer = 'iritkatriel'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2014-01-28.09:27:54.132>
creator = 'Chen.ZHANG'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 20415
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['209519', '209521', '382546']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['mark.dickinson', 'jwilk', 'ezio.melotti', 'Chen.ZHANG', 'iritkatriel']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue20415'
versions = []

[ChenZHANG]

Since the usage of isinstance could be "isinstance(1, (int, float))", I'm wondering why it doesn't accept "[int, float]", if I do so, it would raise TypeError saying "arg 2 must be a type or tuple of types". What's the difference in effect between a tuple and a list here? (I know a tuple is immutable, but I think it doesn't matter when passing some other types of non-string iterables(yielding strings), am I right?

[mdickinson]

See related discussion on python-ideas here:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2011-July/010610.html

[iritkatriel]

Interesting discussion, and the reason seems to be here:
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2011-July/010642.html

Lists need to be checked for cycles, tuples don't.