How clean/elegant is Python's syntax?

[rusi]

On May 30, 11:36 pm, Ian Kelly <ian.g.ke... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:49 PM, rusi <rustompm... 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)
>
> Putting the separator first feels more natural to me because I expect
> the separator to usually be short as compared to the iterable, which
> is often a longer expression (as is the case in both of your
> subsequent usages).  Placing the separator first also preserves
> consistency of interface with the str.join and bytes.join functions,
> as well as the older string.join function.

This is a subjective view of course...
My problem is not method vs function but the order.
Ive seen/used join dozens of times. Yet I find
"".join(["apple","bear","cat"])
backkwards as compared to
["apple","bear","cat"].join("")

The consistency is a separate question -- not arguing about that. Just
that I dont like the look