c++模板实际上比c#和Java模板强大得多，因为它们在编译时进行计算，并支持专门化。这允许模板元编程，并使c++编译器等价于图灵机(即在编译过程中，你可以计算任何可以用图灵机计算的东西)。

看起来，在其他非常有趣的建议中，有一个是关于改进泛型和打破向后兼容性的:

Currently, generics are implemented using erasure, which means that the generic type information is not available at runtime, which makes some kind of code hard to write. Generics were implemented this way to support backwards compatibility with older non-generic code. Reified generics would make the generic type information available at runtime, which would break legacy non-generic code. However, Neal Gafter has proposed making types reifiable only if specified, so as to not break backward compatibility.

Alex Miller关于Java 7提案的文章

维基百科上有很多比较Java/ c#泛型和Java泛型/ c++模板的文章。关于泛型的主要文章似乎有点混乱，但它确实有一些很好的信息。

注:我没有足够的观点来评论，所以请随意将此作为评论移动到适当的答案。

Contrary to popular believe, which I never understand where it came from, .net implemented true generics without breaking backward compatibility, and they spent explicit effort for that. You don't have to change your non-generic .net 1.0 code into generics just to be used in .net 2.0. Both the generic and non-generic lists are still available in .Net framework 2.0 even until 4.0, exactly for nothing else but backward compatibility reason. Therefore old codes that still used non-generic ArrayList will still work, and use the same ArrayList class as before. Backward code compatibility is always maintained since 1.0 till now... So even in .net 4.0, you still have to option to use any non-generics class from 1.0 BCL if you choose to do so.

所以我不认为java必须打破向后兼容性来支持真正的泛型。

Anders Hejlsberg自己在这里描述了“c#、Java和c++中的泛型”的区别。

在Java中，泛型只是编译器级别的，所以你得到:

a = new ArrayList<String>()
a.getClass() => ArrayList

注意，'a'的类型是数组列表，而不是字符串列表。所以香蕉列表的类型等于()猴子列表。

可以这么说。