#! perl -slw
use strict;
use threads;

sub grandCentral {
    my @t = map threads->create( $_ ), @_;
    return map $_->join,  @t;
}

sub runme {
    my $arg = shift;
    sleep $arg * 2;
    return $arg;
}

sub a{ runme( 1 )  }
sub b{ runme( 2 )  }
sub c{ runme( 3 )  }
sub d{ runme( 4 )  }

my $start = time;
my @results = grandCentral( \&a, \&b, \&c, \&d );
print for @results;
printf "Took %d seconds\n", time - $start;

__END__
C:\test>centralDispatch.pl
1
2
3
4
Took 8 seconds