How clean/elegant is Python's syntax?

[MRAB]

On 30/05/2013 19:44, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 4:36 AM, Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:49 PM, rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On May 30, 6:14 am, Ma Xiaojun <damage3... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> What interest me is a one liner:
>>>> print '\n'.join(['\t'.join(['%d*%d=%d' % (j,i,i*j) for i in
>>>> range(1,10)]) for j in range(1,10)])
>>>
>>> Ha,Ha! The join method is one of the (for me) ugly features of python.
>>> You can sweep it under the carpet with a one-line join function and
>>> then write clean and pretty code:
>>>
>>> #joinwith
>>> def joinw(l,sep): return sep.join(l)
>>
>> I don't object to changing the join method (one of the more
>> shoe-horned string methods) back into a function, but to my eyes
>> you've got the arguments backward.  It should be:
>>
>> def join(sep, iterable): return sep.join(iterable)
>
> Trouble is, it makes some sense either way. I often put the larger
> argument first - for instance, I would write 123412341324*5 rather
> than the other way around - and in this instance, it hardly seems as
> clear-cut as you imply. But the function can't be written to take them
> in either order, because strings are iterable too. (And functions that
> take args either way around aren't better than those that make a
> decision.)
>
And additional argument (pun not intended) for putting sep second is
that you can give it a default value:

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