section - x-symbol & indentation problem

[Surendra Singhi]

Hello,

If I use something like
\section{Introduction}
then the Introduction is shown as highlighted and in large font, but the
text in the section is not indented.

But, if I use \begin{section}{introduction} ...\end{section} everything
is indented but the section name is not highlighted and shown in large
fonts.

Which of these two options should I use? Which one is preferred style?
And is it some bug(or absence of feature) in auctex or x-symbol or am I
missing something?

Thanks.

[David Kastrup]

Post by Surendra Singhi
If I use something like
\section{Introduction}
then the Introduction is shown as highlighted and in large font, but
the text in the section is not indented.
But, if I use \begin{section}{introduction} ...\end{section}
everything is indented but the section name is not highlighted and
shown in large fonts.
Which of these two options should I use? Which one is preferred style?

The former. You can easily look into about any TeX document if you
don't believe me. Apart from being unexpected syntax for a _lot_ of
tools, option 2 will also cause all assignments of TeX in the section
to be local: font changes, redefinitions, everything. That is usually
not expected, and TeX consumes much more memory since it has to save
all old values and settings.

Post by Surendra Singhi
And is it some bug(or absence of feature) in auctex or x-symbol or
am I missing something?

It has nothing to do with x-symbol as far as I can see. It has to do
with the general stylistic conventions. Your preference is quite
untypical for LaTeX source texts and leads to problems with TeX, too.
It will also not make people happy with who you plan to exchange
documents.

I am not convinced that it would be a good idea if we generally tried
supporting this kind of macro/environment-swappiness.