What's so special about it? Static heap allocation (without malloc) was the norm with COBOL + ISAM; early SQL databases used eg ESQL/C with static or quasi-static allocation (by which I mean at most one malloc per field for the entire process runtime). Process-per-request was (and is) recommended practice if you value stability and security above all when using languages that don't have GC and/or have issues with memory fragmentation.