Hendrik van Rooyen wrote:

I should have known - you use a string method to get a list of words,
but you have to go to the list to get a list of characters from a string.

That is symmetry.

There is no string method to do it, which is what I am complaining
about.

That would be asymmetry.


Is there a reason for this, or is the lack of symmetry just an historical
artefact?

A lack of perception to see the symmetry that is there.

Classes create instances of the class when called.

Sometimes alternate constructors are needed when there is more than one possible way to create an instance from a given input. In the case of str(iterable), one could want either a string representing the iterable itself, just as with non-iterables, or a string representing the concatenated contents of the iterable. Str.join implements the second choice, with an added string parameter to allow a constant string to be interpolated between the joined items.

The link that jon vs python supplied is interesting.

Yes. Mr. Shaw suffers from the same disease of 'neglect' that he accuses others of. See my other response in this thread.

Terry Jan Reedy

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