“What if” iterable.join()

…or “Let’s keep floging this dead horse”…

Over the weekend I got some reactions over the str.join() vs list.join(). Well, just for fun, this morning I played “what if” in my head.

So, let’s say every iterable got a join() method. So you could

>>> a = ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w']
>>> a.join('')

Exactly as JavaScript does. Mkay. A could even be a tuple and would still work. Or, stupidly enough, a string and still work. But, then, what would be the first thing that would cross you mind when you saw this code for the first time:

>>> b = ['r', 'u', 'l', 'z']
>>> c = a.join(b)

You have a list in one side and a list in the other with a “join” method. List-join-list. Well, I’d expect another list with ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w', 'r', 'u', 'l', 'z'] which is what extend() does.

But let’s return to the original str.join(): What it does is, join the iterable in the parameters using “self”. Mkay, so what would be:

c = ['r', ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w'], 'u', ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w'], 'l', ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w'], 'z']

Which doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s go further. join() could, possible, call str() for the parameter and still react like JavaScript join(). Why? Well, as you may already know, Python have dynamic typing which means any variable can be used. Just to remember:

var l = ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w']
var j = l.join('')

would result in “slow” in JavaScript. Mkay, so

>>> l = ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w']
>>> r = ['r', 'u', 'l', 'z']
>>> j = l.join(r)

Would result in… guess what, "s['r', 'u', 'l', 'z']l['r', 'u', 'l', 'z']o['r', 'u', 'l', 'z']w" which, not surprisingly, still doesn’t make sense. Ok, if r was a simple string, it would react exactly like JavaScript. But it would be a mess with any other types. And what’s the point of dynamic typing if you force types?

So, str.join() not only makes code simpler and avoid some mess of monkey-patching, it also removes a greater problem: ambiguity.

And yes, I understand that JavaScript list.join(str) makes sense, but it still have the problem with “What about the other types? Are you a racist?”

Edit: Just for curiosity, I wrote a list.join(list) code in JavaScript to see the results. Here they are for you mind-bloggling pleasure:

js> var l = ['s', 'l', 'o', 'w'];
js> var r = ['r', 'u', 'l', 'z'];
js> var j = l.join(r);
js> j