PHP-the-implementation is pretty spectacularly shitty too — it'd be even worse than MRI for persistent processes of any sort.
What's good about PHP is the execution/dispatch/deployment model, which papers over massive deficiencies in the infantile implementation (much less the know-nothing language).
Excellent point, and often (as now) overlooked. PHP does have some brilliant design choices, for example attaching itself to the Apache process, terminating when the request ends - this makes a lot less vulnerable to issues like memory handling. Some extensions may leak like a sieve, but since it's all cleaned up when the request ends it never really becomes a problem.
