Python join: why is it string.join(list) instead of list.join(string)?

Question

I am confused about the usage of string.join(list) instead of list.join(string), for instance see this code:

    my_list = ["Hey", "Fish"]
    print my_list.join("-")
    # Produce: "Hey-Fish"

I think this code seems nicer than this one:

    my_list = ["Hey", "Fish"]
    print "-".join(my_list)
    # Produce: "Hey-Fish"

Can someone tell me the reason behind this? 

Answer 1

the reason behind this is that we can join iterable, not only list, result and 'joiner' are always strings too. E.g.

 import urllib2

print '\n###########\n'.join(
    urllib2.urlopen('https://intellipaat.com/community
'))

Answer 2

Primarily because the result of some String.join() is a string.

The sequence (list or tuple or whatever) doesn't appear in the result, just a string. Because the result is a string, it makes sense as a method of a string.

You can use the following video tutorials to clear all your doubts:-