my $job_id = new_job_id();
    $SIG{ CHLD } = 'IGNORE';
    die "fork failed: $!" unless defined( my $pid = fork );

    if ( $pid ) {
      # the parent branch (process P)
      print_response( $job_id );
    }
    else {
      # the child branch (process C)
      # NEED: close_all_dups_to_stdout_and_stderr();
      close STDOUT;
      close STDERR;
      compute_and_cache_results( $job_id );
    }

    exit;