A database is a store for globals only if we don’t care too much about introducing complexity.

Globals often need to have the following properties:

1. Need to persist for the duration of the program.
2. Everybody needs the latest value out of the global variable.

Now both of these things don’t need to be explicitly a “global variable” in the programming sense. Logically speaking we just need code that implements the behaviour of the global variable well enough to satisfy our requirements.

most DBs are most often an overkill for our requirements of a global variable.

sqlite is a fantastic fit for this use-case if one wants some level of ACID properties.

One can go with a redis cache or some other kind of disk caching KV store.

Or simply just go with a global variable and measure how it does before doing all this crap.

Not related to the PHP thing. It’s e-mudhra incident. They were (yes, they voluntarily shutdown their business) a Certificate Authority (Who sell SSL certificates like Cloudflare or Let’s Encrypt). They generated 8 security keys that were something like 4, 8, … Which can be guessed easily. In effect when you go to your bank’s website, how do you know the website is actually your bank and not some scammer pretending to be? Based on the SSL certificate. Usually to prove this, websites use a 384-digit number that cannot be guessed easily by anybody else. ‘4’ is easy to guess and can be used by other people to pretend to be your bank.