This is definitely neat; it's a simple, clever way to fail somewhat-gracefully. Interestingly, this is one piece of a broader strategy for building scalable we

This is definitely neat; it's a simple, clever way to fail somewhat-gracefully. Interestingly, this is one piece of a broader strategy for building scalable web applications, addressed in Matt Welsh's thesis (SEDA): http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mdw/proj/seda/ http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mdw/proj/seda/ If you haven't taken a look at the ideas in SEDA, it's definitely worth the time. Most modern web apps incorporate at least some pieces of it to great effect.