The "run once and die" model of php applications however, it extremely clarifying and simplifying. It is a bit like the unix philosophy of "simple apps, in seq

The "run once and die" model of php applications however, it extremely clarifying and simplifying. It is a bit like the unix philosophy of "simple apps, in sequence" -- in the sense that it clarifies what development should be. PHP apps, at their best, were multiple "run once and die" endpoints -- the drive to "Front Controller" and "run long" apps throws away much of the value of this paradigm. Part of the community problem, id say, is that this paradigm was never well-articulated; and always associated with "a mess". People like rasmus tried: yes have your long-running apps (eg., in Java), but your front-end should be die-quickly.