[lloydde]

Fails? Frequently? In whet contexts? Was the process already suspended?

The process might have been processing the SIGTERM and shutting down cleanly, but we are impatient so we -9, SIGKILL it, knowing that it can't process that signal and will be terminated (as long as its parent is alive). Or you are correct and there are many scenarios where it will be ignored.

Oh, the developer is walking by and I mention the "hang" to him. He replies, "did you kill -3, SIGQUIT, to generate a core? No? Bye."

Need the process to re-initialize, does the program have a SIGHUP handler?

kill is more geneneral than the name implies, though I agree signaling is an intermediate topic.