That certainly makes sense, as far as main() goes, but having main() in C++ for example doesn't solve the problem of needing to define functions prior to calls

That certainly makes sense, as far as main() goes, but having main() in C++ for example doesn't solve the problem of needing to define functions prior to calls to them. It just helps you put all your stuff before main(), but even then it only "exists" if it shows up in the right order in every previous header file. Line-based stuff like BASIC's GOTO/GOSUB was kind of a fun workaround to the idea of even having functions at all, and I'd happily live in that place still... but... as somoene who manifestly does not write compilers, is it still an extravagant demand in this day and age to ask a compiler to check and include/throw for all the functions out-of-order before running a code file from the top? [edit] What I mean is, this was fundamental to ES3/4 bytecode compilers for VMs like Java or Flash, and it would be absurd to ask e.g. Javascript coders [edit: said Python, don't work with Python, there are cases in PHP where it's necessary] to order their functions in the order they're invoked with virtuals to place them. This is like providing toilets on a cruise ship. It's barely even a "service", like whereas garbage collection or something is an actual service. Restructuring the order of function definitions as you build out dependencies has got to be one of the worst wastes of coder time I can think of. Great if you really can find an optimization by doing that, but the way people code these days that basically never happens. We have to assume that everything we write gets compiled anyway, or why else is it in the code! If there are no dead branches, what's the purpose of not "existing"/let's say pre-virtualizing all the branches, regardless of which order they're written in? (Serious question).