title: Why doesn't a python dict.update() return the object?
body: <p>I 'm trying to do :</p>
  
  <pre><code>award_dict = {
      "url" : "http://facebook.com",
      "imageurl" : "http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3431/3939267074_feb9eb19b1_o.png",
      "count" : 1,
  }
  
  def award(name, count, points, desc_string, my_size, parent) :
      if my_size &gt; count :
          a = {
              "name" : name,
              "description" : desc_string % count,
              "points" : points,
              "parent_award" : parent,
          }
          a.update(award_dict)
          return self.add_award(a, siteAlias, alias).award
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But if felt really cumbersome in the function, and I would have rather done :</p>
  
  <pre><code>        return self.add_award({
              "name" : name,
              "description" : desc_string % count,
              "points" : points,
              "parent_award" : parent,
          }.update(award_dict), siteAlias, alias).award
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why doesn't update return the object so you can chain? </p>
  
  <p>JQuery does this to do chaining. Why isn't it acceptable in python?</p>