<i>It all started with your lists. I think that was when I really fell in love. You see in a language like Java or php if you want to get the last element of the list you have to write something like $a[count($a) - 1]. But python was different: just write a[-1].</i><p>Don't take this as hostile.  Rather as an observation of the shifted expectations of programmer subculture.<p>So a cryptic negative index counts as "elegant?"  Wouldn't it be more straightforward just to ask a list for "last?"<p>Here's the equivalent Smalltalk:<p><pre><code>     list last
</code></pre>
In Ruby:<p><pre><code>     list.1ast
</code></pre>
Laypeople would have an immediate inkling of either. The negative array index stuff would cause at least some python prompt exploration or the shift to some sort of reference.