If you design your abstractions correctly, you can get the best of both worlds. You can create a simple Matrix type which stores single array, with a subscript

If you design your abstractions correctly, you can get the best of both worlds. You can create a simple Matrix type which stores single array, with a subscript operator that gives a 2D facade. It can let you call it with x/y pairs, but just lower that to an index into your single contiguous buffer.