OT: PHP JIT/Compiler - massive speedup

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Pete Lancashire <pete-6NP59FE1ho9MFQD/ygXjfdBPR1lH4CV8 at public.gmane.org>

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/update_facebook_rewrites_php_runtime_with_project.php

Interesting quote:

    "HipHop executes the source code in a semantically equivalent manner," 
    Zhao continues, "and sacrifices some rarely used features - such as eval() 
    - in exchange for improved performance."

"eval" is the kind of thing that is easy in an interpreter and hard
for a compiler.  And the kind of thing that interpretive language
advocates often tout as a feature.  It is also a frequent source of
security holes.

Is eval (and the like) rare in php code?  Rare in good php code?

A JIT using G++ seems rather ponderous.
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