title: How to convert a list of tuples to a matrix for column access?
body: <p>I have a list of tuples:</p>
  
  <pre><code>tups = [('a',5,'test'),('b', 8, 'test1')]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>For each tuple, I need to extract the value at an index i.</p>
  
  <p>Obviously, I could iterate over each tuple in the list, get the value I am after and pop it into an array... However, I think there should be a nicer way.</p>
  
  <p>Ideally, I'd like to transform my list of tuples to a matrix or DataFrame (or something like that), where I can extract a column as an array.</p>
  
  <p>For example, using the above list of tuples, I would like to do something like the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>matrix = tups.AsMatrix(ncols=len(tups[0])) #All tups have the same number of values.
  column_values = matrix[0]
  print(column_values)
  &gt; 'a'
  &gt; 'b'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I do this with Python 3? I have seen Pandas has a DataFrame type, but ideally I would like to do this without using another library (other than numpy or native python).</p>