title: Python functions run as background processes
body: <p>I know there are ways of making a program wait for a function to finish, but is there a way to make the function, once called, to carry on in the background of a program.</p>
  
  <p>This might be especially useful if you were making a program timer, like the one below.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import time
  count = 0    
  def timer():
      while True():
          time.sleep(60)
          count += 1            
          print("This program has now been running for " + str(count) + " minutes"
  timer() # Carry this function out in the background
  print("Hello! Welcome to the program timer!")
  name = raw_input("What is your name?")
  print("Nice to meet you, " + name + "!")
  # More stuff here...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I hope there is a way to do background processes in python.</p>