Right, and I agree with that. I prefer = over define.

The problem comes when everything is "inlined".

    (def color (r g b)
      (with (c (table) 
             f (fn (x) (if (< x 0) 0 (> x 255) 255 x)))
        (= (c 'r) (f r) (c 'g) (f g) (c 'b) (f b))
        c))

This is the first thing in html.arc

I can't make sense of it, it's way too terse.

This is probably why python doesn't have a proper lambda expression.

EDIT:

After some pondering, I see what it does ..

An equally terse implementation in python:

  def limit(n, lower, upper):
      if n < lower: return lower
      if n > upper: return upper
      return n

  def color(*args):
      return dict(zip("rgb", [limit(c, 0, 255) for c in args]))

  >>> color(10, 20, 30)
  {'r': 10, 'b': 30, 'g': 20}

This is a lot clearer, without sacrificing conciseness:

  def color(*args):
      rgb_values = [limit(c, 0, 255) for c in args]
      return dict(zip("rgb", rgb_values))

By simply getting the inlined list comprehension outside the dict expression, the whole thing becomes 10 times easier to read: "Ah, it's mapping 'rgb' characters to rgb values."