Allows dead simple paralellization of a Python function call

async.py

def async(func):
    """A decorator to make a function run in its own thread and return its result on .join()"""
    def launch(*args, **kwargs):
        target = ThreadedFunction(func, *args, **kwargs)
        target.start()
        return target
    return launch
class ThreadedFunction(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, func, *args, **kwargs):
        self.args = args
        self.kwargs = kwargs
        self.func = func
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
    def run(self):
        self.result = self.func(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
    def join(self):
        threading.Thread.join(self)
        return self.result

# =====================================
#Example usage:
@async
async_load(path):
  with open(path) as f:
    return f.read()

pointer = async_load("hello_world.txt")

# Other computations...

print pointer.join()
# >Hello World