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I think you mean it in the context of proofs, right? Proofs are indeed often best written in a topological order: a series of true statements, where every reference refer backwards.

You don't often see

    Answer = A + B, 
    where 
    
    A = ...
    ...
    B = ...
albeit you sometimes see it, and it is totally valid. For proofreading something, it makes a big difference: if things are in a topological order, you can simulate a constant memory finite machine. If they are not in a topological order, well, probably you better just rewrite it (or at least I do).

For most other things, I usually prefer the bird-view first, when I am doing or reading some elses math.

Funnily the language Haskell which operates on definitions, is very order independent, it even allows circular definitions. I like it for leetcode and such.



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