> Using templates in C++ can make code faster, though. Because you can write the same routine with more abstraction and less indirection

If we are talking about the same code using generics vs. not generics, one would expect similar or worse performance depending on implementation details, as you are strictly adding indirection or not. Think add two 'ints' vs add two 'T'. Depending on the implementation of generics, you're adding indirection, or not.

If we are talking about leveraging generics to write different code that is more efficient, code that is perhaps infeasible without generics, then yes, totally get what you are saying. I, and I think parent, were referencing the former however, which is maybe not the most helpful way of comparing things :)

> I've used C++ templates effectively as a code generator to layer multiple levels of abstractions into completely customized code throughout the abstraction.

Yeah, I've done the same to inline matrix operations for lidar data processing. Templates are pretty neat since they are completely expanded at compile time. I've yet to look into the details of Golang's generics as far as implementation details go, but since Go has had code generation built in for a while, and it creates static binaries, I imagine it is a very similar system.

EDIT: After reading the part of the post that goes into detail on Go's implementation of generics, it is very similar, but differs when there is indirection on the input types.