> For instance, what if there are a pair of processes that work in unison and one of them dies?
That would depend upon whether the programmer linked them or not. If they're linked, the exception propagates and potentially kills the peer process. If they're nodes in a supervision tree, it's up to the supervisor as to whether to: respawn the dead process; kill the peer and then restart them both; or even to kill the peer and die itself, passing the error up the tree.
It's a matter of resource cleanup and consistency. Not so much what happens if one of the processes dies, but rather what happens if only one of them does?
That would depend upon whether the programmer linked them or not. If they're linked, the exception propagates and potentially kills the peer process. If they're nodes in a supervision tree, it's up to the supervisor as to whether to: respawn the dead process; kill the peer and then restart them both; or even to kill the peer and die itself, passing the error up the tree.
It's a matter of resource cleanup and consistency. Not so much what happens if one of the processes dies, but rather what happens if only one of them does?