I'm a total newbie at Python, but wouldn't ''.join(map(chr, list)) avoid the quadratic time of doing "string += something" (and also be a prettier solution

I'm a total newbie at Python, but wouldn't ''.join(map(chr, list)) avoid the quadratic time of doing "string += something" (and also be a prettier solution IMO)? (In Python 2.x doing ''.join(chr(n) for n in list) might be a better solution to avoid the intermediate list created by map)