It is usually easier to work in the function field case and then try to develop parallel techniques on the number field side. The development of Arakelov theory and its exploitation by Gerd Faltings in his proof of the Mordell conjecture is a dramatic example. The analogy was also influential in the development of Iwasawa theory and the Main Conjecture. The proof of the fundamental lemma in the Langlands program also made use of techniques that reduced the number field case to the function field case.