> an expensive check+branch on each array access I'm curious if this still stands in general today, given today's advanced branch predictors and the fact that

> an expensive check+branch on each array access I'm curious if this still stands in general today, given today's advanced branch predictors and the fact that the CPU tends to be memory-bandwidth-bound, thus you have more "free computation" while waiting for memory (what GPU programmers call compute to memory ratio).