It's nice to see some progress on the PHP Front, with this and HHVM.
Though I'm not really a fan of PHP, it needs to be done, too much PHP code has been written.
I think the PHP guys themselves should push a bit more for a new runtime though.
Otherwise they'd have to write an actual spec and declase theirs as "just" the reference implementation or something.
I believe there are preliminary plans to implement a JIT compiler for PHP 6. FB has certainly helped push changes being discussed into the ecosystem given their problems scaling PHP.
I think the PHP guys themselves should push a bit more for a new runtime though. Otherwise they'd have to write an actual spec and declase theirs as "just" the reference implementation or something.