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)

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."