why did string.py change in 1.6?

[Andrew Dalke]

In the CVS version (1.6a1) I see that string.py has been
changed a bit.  For example, string.join used to be implemented
by strop.join, which is a C function.  Now it is something
like:

def join(list, sep = " "):
  return sep.join(list)

The function strop.join still exists (so there is duplicated
code between that and the string module).  Given the extra
method call overhead, can anyone tell me why this change was
made?

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org