[upquark]

> "a.b".split(".") and ["a", "b"].join(".")

Seems like a minor point to me, really. Sure, join could've been a member function of the list class, but that would prevent applying it to arbitrary iterables, no? In other words, delimiter.join(items) is more general than items.join(delimiter), because in the latter join must be a member function of the class of items or its ancestor class, and you won't be able to apply it to other iterable objects.

I haven't had much interaction with Ruby, but from my limited experience the syntax felt strictly less intuitive than Python. The only other languages where syntax felt more intuitive to me than Python is the ML family (with derivatives like OCaml, etc).

[klibertp]

> Seems like a minor point to me, really.

All the points raised here are minor and, mostly, subjective. Inability to comprehend this is the only reason such discussions are being repeated over and over again. It's utterly useless to discuss what syntax feels "natural" to whom - it's entirely dependent on what other languages (types of syntax, really) you already know.

There are some characteristics of syntax that we can discuss, for example, how large it is or what characters it tends to mainly use, but discussing these is apparently less fun than saying that something "feels illogical to me".

[upquark]

I meant "minor point" relative to the other points. It's all relative and subjective, of course, I never said otherwise.

Also, doesn't seem like you read the actual argument following the first sentence :)

[klibertp]

> Also, doesn't seem like you read the actual argument following the first sentence :)

Yeah, I was mainly referring to the @pmontra comments, like this one: "I find stressful that in Python you have to enumerate all your imports" and similar.

> Sure, join could've been a member function of the list class, but that would prevent applying it to arbitrary iterables, no?

Not true if your language supports multimethods, see Dylan, Common Lisp and CLOS or Nim and Julia for examples. Also not true if you add the "join" method high enough in the class hierarchy: as an example, in Pharo Smalltalk you have the following hierarchy: ProtoObject -> Object -> Collection -> SequencableCollection -> ArrayedCollection -> String with the "reduce" method being declared on Collection class (reduce being the easiest way to implement "join").

So in short: no. There are many interesting languages which implement various interesting techniques which solve various problems (like the so-called "Expression problem"); it's good to know about them even if you're not going to use them all that much (or at all).

> delimiter.join(items) is more general than items.join(delimiter)

But then you loose the ability to join a collection with a separator not being a String or you need to implement join even higher in the hierarchy (on Object most probably).

> The only other languages where syntax felt more intuitive to me

Yeah, this is what I'm campaigning against. This notion of "intuitiveness" is completely useless and is dependent on how your intuition was formed. All syntaxes of programming languages are artificial and man-made - there is nothing "natural" about them at all. In other words, they are all similarly alien and only get "intuitive" with practice. Programmers usually learn only a single syntax flavor during their careers, which is why they don't realize that the "intuitiveness" is just a function of familiarity. Learning some of the other kinds of syntax is good because it lets you observe how your "intuition" is shifting and changing in the process.

[upquark]

Your annoyingly patronizing tone aside, I'll try to address what you're saying.

> ...the class hierarchy: as an example, in Pharo Smalltalk you have the following hierarchy: ProtoObject -> Object -> Collection -> SequencableCollection -> ArrayedCollection -> String

Seems ridiculously over-engineered to me, but whatever, let's keep going..

> with the "reduce" method being declared on Collection class (reduce being the easiest way to implement "join").

'reduce' and 'join' are very different things. one is a generic function (aka fold, also exists in python as 'reduce'), the other is a string concatenation method that takes an iterable and produces a string. the latter can be implemented via the former, but they're not the same thing. no one's stopping you from using 'reduce' in Python instead of the built-in string member function 'join', btw.

> So in short: no. There are many interesting languages which implement various interesting techniques which solve various problems

Ugh, i give up :)