Why don't list operations return the resulting list?
<p>I'm interested in the thought process that led to this. To me, a relative newbie, it seems hampering, since it prevents "chaining" of list processing (e.g. <code>mylist.reverse().append('a string')[:someLimit]</code>). I imagine it might be that "The Powers That Be" decided that list comprehension is a better paradigm (a valid opinion), and so didn't want to encourage other methods - but it seems perverse to prevent an intuitive method, even if better alternatives exist.</p>

<p>Note that I'm not complaining (I'm sure there <em>is</em> a sensible reason, I'm just interested in what it is!), nor looking for a solution (the comments <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4280691/list-reverse-does-not-return-list">here</a> were very instructive) - just looking for some context, and a deeper understanding of the language's design process.</p>
