Example of managing lots of background jobs from Bash

bash_parallel.sh

#!/bin/bash

function my_slow_job() {
  sleep 1
}

function parallel_demo() {
  count=${1:-10}
  echo "Starting $count parallel processes:"
  for i in $(seq -w $count) ; do
    my_slow_job &
    pids="${pids} $!"
  done
  jobs
  for pid in $pids ; do
    wait $pid
  done
  echo "Done!"
}


time parallel_demo 20