Comment by std_throwaway

I assume that we want to access these arrays as "array of structs" for most functions but as "structure of arrays" for some calculation intensive functions. The article suggests storing it as array of structs and to make copies for those calculations but this seems inefficient to me. Modern C++ should provide a way to efficiently decouple the access model from the memory layout.

Can we hide the actual memory layout without big overhead using C++ inline/template functions/classes? Would that be the visitor pattern?