A generic reference is also known as an “untyped” reference. It can refer to any type of COM resource. It could also refer to a resource in the application dictionary, such as a table or window. Prior to Dexterity 7.0, all references were generic references.
We don’t recommend using generic references to refer to COM objects. Generic references to COM objects must be used carefully. Because these references contain no type information, there is no compile-time checking to verify the reference is being used correctly. If a reference refers to a different type of object than you are expecting, a runtime exception may occur.
Your application may not perform as well if you use generic references, because the information necessary to connect to the specified object isn’t available at compile-time. Generic references always use “late binding”, where the information to connect to the specified COM object must be retrieved at runtime.