Bash & (ampersand) operator

Question

I\'m trying to run 3 commands in parallel in bash shell:

$ (first command) & (second command) & (third command) & wait

The prob

Answer 1

the best I can think of is:

first & p1=$!
second & p2=$!
...

wait $p1 && wait $p2 && ..

or

wait $p1 || ( kill $p2 $p3 && exit 1 )
...

however this still enforces an order for the check of processes, so if the third fails immediately you won't notice it until the first and second finishes.