def flatten(l, types=(list, )):
    """
    Given a list/tuple that potentially contains nested lists/tuples of arbitrary nesting,
    flatten into a single dimension.  In other words, turn [(5, 6, [8, 3]), 2, [2, 1, (3, 4)]]
    into [5, 6, 8, 3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 4]

    This is safe to call on something not a list/tuple - the original input is returned as a list
    """
    # For backwards compatibility, this returned a list, not an iterable.
    # Changing to return an iterable could break things.
    if not isinstance(l, types):
        return l
    return list(flattened_iterator(l, types))