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Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2025 19:40:41 +0300
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP True Async RFC Stage 4
To: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: edmond.ht@gmail.com (Edmond Dantes)

Hi.
> This is simply not true.  The example you're replying to is quite common.

It=E2=80=99s probably my poor English. So I=E2=80=99ll try to rephrase the =
idea:
The majority of database queries are executed sequentially, step by
step. Not all queries. Not always. But most of them.
This is true even in languages that already have async.

> That is *A benefit*.  It is not the *only benefit*.  Being able to compre=
ss the time of each request in a shared-nothing model is absolutely valuabl=
e.
(It=E2=80=99s important not to overestimate this model, otherwise lately yo=
u
sometimes hear complaints that the ultra-trendy immutable philosophy
leads to terrible performance :))

A stateful worker does not automatically mean active sharing of state
between requests. It gives the developer the choice of what can and
cannot be shared. You have a choice. If you want all services to
follow the immutable model =E2=80=94 you can do that. But now you don=E2=80=
=99t have
to pay for compilation or initialization. You have complete creative
freedom.

> Remember, in the wild, PHP-FPM and mod_php are by orders of magnitude the=
 most common ways PHP is executed.  React, Swoole, etc. are rounding errors=
 in most of the market.  And the alternate runtime with the most momentum i=
s FrankenPHP, which reuses processes but is still "one request in a process=
 at a time."

Almost no one wants to spend time building code with a technology that
isn=E2=80=99t supported. So when people want to do things like that, they
simply choose another language.
I=E2=80=99m not saying that async isn=E2=80=99t supported in CGI mode... bu=
t..
it=E2=80=99s just that a gain of a few milliseconds is unlikely to be notic=
eable.

> I am going to assume this is a translation issue, because "morally outdat=
ed" is the wrong term here.

Thank you! That=E2=80=99s true. But a more accurate translation would be: i=
t=E2=80=99s
a technology that has become outdated not because of time, but because
the circumstances and requirements have changed. Back in the years
when CGI was evolving, things were different. There were no servers
with a dozen cores.