As a casual reader, albeit one that has used, and is used, to the join function, I had to go over the OP twice to understand what is said in the first option (join '',a,b,c). I can't really relate to using a function in a way that is counter intuitive to someone who is familiar with the way it should be used, but I'd hazard that for anyone who never used it, or Perl, neither will make sense; and if that person is to perldoc it, the first example might only serve to confuse more.