What do templates have to do with storage, though? My primary attraction to C++ templates is that they let me write very expressive code that will compile down

What do templates have to do with storage, though? My primary attraction to C++ templates is that they let me write very expressive code that will compile down to a handful of instructions. Now, actually compiling complex C++ templates on a storage-constrained system can be a problem, since templates are compile-time beasts, not runtime. Once compiled, though, they have a Cheshire-cat existence. Edit: Unless you're doing something rather silly with the templates, but again, that's not a template problem.