in reply to Executing a command after the preceding command finished processing
If you want to run the two programs at the same time and wait for both on a system with UNIX shell (wfm on bash and csh) you might try something like:
perl -e 'system q/\ (sleep 5; echo after 5) &\ (sleep 2; echo after 2) &\ wait; echo all done\ /'
Ron
In Section
Seekers of Perl Wisdom