One difference in other languages is that the extra indirection will add overhead. You have to (at the very least) hop through an extra function call, and even that will become significant if you're writing an image kernel.

Julia can inline through all the `getindex!` functions so you get the same performance as with a hand-coded C or Fortran array.

All Wirth languages did this. Great for clarity when a specific mapping is needed. Damn I miss me some Modula 2.