Mittelbach, Frank wrote:
> yeah ... and I would claim that this urge of you goes in completely the wrong direction :-)

Okay, I see where this comes from.

> my take is that the recent addition of \def:NNn and firends was already a mistake and should be reverted. These functions provide something which at the expl3 level isn't really needed. What is gained from having the alternative between
> 
> \def:Npn #1#2#3 {...}
> 
> and
> 
> \def:NNn 3 {...}
> 
> the former is much more general (and on expl3 level that generality is sometimes needed), I would claim it is easier to read as the # signs stand out better than a simple "3".

I'll revise what I have, in that case. I'm getting the hang of this,
honestly!

> it is a bit like the newcount newcounter discussion yeaterday ... \def:NNn is kind of an attempt to carry more or less "user-level" functions into the language and they don't belong there

On the counter discussion, you'll see (in xnotes2bib) I've stuck with
the low-level variant but needing to make it available to the user.  I
hope this is the right idea.

As I've said, I'm asking to understand things.

Probably a re-spin of xnotes2bib today or tomorrow, with this new
information on board.
-- 
Joseph Wright