How would you Ctrl + F the definition of foo function in a Java file on GitHub? Probably just foo( , which would give you both the definition and all the calls. In Rust, you’d search for fn foo . In general, every construct is introduced by a leading keyword, which makes it much easier to read the code for a human. When I read C++, I always have a hard time distinguishing field declarations from method declarations: they start the same. Leading keywords also make it easier to do stupid text searches for things. If you don’t find this argument compelling because “one should just use an IDE to look for methods”, well, it actually makes implementing an IDE slightly easier as well: