''.join() with encoded strings

[Sandra-24]

I'd love to know why calling ''.join() on a list of encoded strings
automatically results in converting to the default encoding. First of
all, it's undocumented, so If I didn't have non-ascii characters in my
utf-8 data, I'd never have known until one day I did, and then the code
would break. Secondly you can't override (for valid reasons) the
default encoding, so that's not a way around it. So ''.join becomes
pretty useless when dealing with the real (non-ascii) world.

I won't miss the str class when it finally goes (in v3?).

How can I join my encoded strings effeciently?

Thanks,
-Sandra