>>     [...].  An arguably better way would be to have the calls affect
>>     "the process on the other end of this pipe".
> This won't work.  There can be zero to N processes at the end of a
> pipe.

This is a specious objection; I didn't mention it on the assumption
that anyone on tech-kern would be able to see how easy it'd be to have
the call fail unless there is exactly one such process.

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