Add infrastructure to run a function asynchronously.

Add infrastructure to run a function asynchronously.

This adds start_async() and finish_async(), which runs a function
asynchronously. Communication with the caller happens only via pipes.
For this reason, this implementation forks off a child process that runs
the function.

[sp: Style nit fixed by removing unnecessary block on if condition
     inside of start_async()]

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <johannes.sixt@telecom.at>
Signed-off-by: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>