> fine, however you could take the exercise further and actually apply > some of the functionality of L3PL. i've appended my version below Thank you for your example. At least I now understand (roughly) what all the philosophical discussion was about. However, I am still puzzled by the purpose of it all. The new xr.sty is manifestly more difficult to follow than its predecessor. So who is meant to benefit ? The user, the package writer, ... ? And what exactly is the benefit ? (I'd be grateful for an explanation not using the word "module", which makes my head dizzy.)