join()

[John W. Baxter]

In article <mailman.971136207.8882.python-list at python.org>, François 
Pinard <pinard at iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> [Thomas Wouters]
> 
> > On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 03:07:43PM +1300, Greg Ewing wrote:
> > > echuck at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> > > > In Python 2.0, I was surprised to see join() had become a method of
> > > > string.  I "naturally" expected it to be a method of list.
> 
> > > Quite a lot of people screamed blue murder about this at the time,
> > > and were ignored.  Getting it changed now seems to be impossible.
> 
> > Now now, that's not very nice.  I'm certain I saw a lot of responses to
> > the threads about "".join() that tried to explain the choice.
> 
> Behind each choice, good or bad, there is an explanation. :-(
> 
> > I can imagine that some postings were 'ignored', given the sheer 
> > volume,
> > but it's not like *all* complaints were ignored.
> 
> Explaining a choice does not make it good, and responding with an
> explanation, without otherwise listening, is still a way to "ignore"
> those who cannot bear that choice.  I like Python a great deal so, short
> of a better reason, I only guess that some thought that adding a bit of
> intrinsic ugliness would make it more widespread and wi[l]dely popular! 
> :-)


On the other hand, not having one's stated desires respected does not 
necessarily mean one has been ignored.  It may mean that one's 
desires--whether joined in by others or not--did not outweigh other 
considerations.  (Either way, one didn't get what one wanted, of course.)

  --John

-- 
John W. Baxter   Port Ludlow, WA USA  jwbnews at scandaroon.com