@ori wrote at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/250301
For the same reasons wikiversions.cdb was converted to a PHP file -- viz., that
static arrays in PHP files get cached in HHVM's bytecode cache and are
therefore faster to use with HHVM than CDB files.
See also: T99740: Use static php array files for l10n cache at WMF (instead of CDB)