using subroutines was common practice when 16 kibibytes was a lot of core, it was common practice before fortran existed, it was common practice before people used assemblers, and it wasn't just common practice in academia but also in places like ibm, cdc, hp, burroughs, and librascope general precision
(it's true, though, that they were expensive)
from my point of view the problem with arrays, json, etc., is not the performance but the failures of orthogonality which require you to memorize a zillion special cases, which i think is what you're saying about 'a thoughtful, principled manner'
(it's true, though, that they were expensive)
from my point of view the problem with arrays, json, etc., is not the performance but the failures of orthogonality which require you to memorize a zillion special cases, which i think is what you're saying about 'a thoughtful, principled manner'
some of my own thoughts on what that might look like are at http://canonical.org/~kragen/binary-relations