ggrimes
commented
2 months ago I agree it is confusing.
In Nextflow, tuples are preferred over lists because they ensure data remains unchanged and grouped correctly as it passes through various steps of a pipeline, thanks to their immutable and fixed-size nature. This helps maintain data integrity and simplifies the management of complex workflows.
https://blog.mrhaki.com/2016/03/groovy-goodness-using-tuples.html
I will have a go at rewording
I'm not clear on how a tuple is defined here.
It's introduced as "a grouping of data, represented as a Groovy List" - could it be called a list?
The Nextflow docs really only talk about tuples in the fromFilePairs section "The matching files are emitted as tuples".
Maybe there is an important distinction, but I'm a bit confused.
I see Tuples are defined here https://www.nextflow.io/docs/latest/process.html#input-type-tuple and in the lesson here
https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/workflows-nextflow/05-processes-part2.html#grouped-inputs-and-outputs