Can I add custom methods/attributes to built-in Python types?

You can’t directly add the method to the original type. However, you can subclass the type then substitute it in the built-in/global namespace, which achieves most of the effect desired. Unfortunately, objects created by literal syntax will continue to be of the vanilla type and won’t have your new methods/attributes.

Here’s what it looks like

# Built-in namespace
import __builtin__

# Extended subclass
class mystr(str):
    def first_last(self):
        if self:
            return self[0] + self[-1]
        else:
            return ''

# Substitute the original str with the subclass on the built-in namespace    
__builtin__.str = mystr

print str(1234).first_last()
print str(0).first_last()
print str('').first_last()
print '0'.first_last()

output = """
14
00

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "strp.py", line 16, in <module>
    print '0'.first_last()
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'first_last'
"""