I think the pids are getting confused. When I say pid, I mean an id for a combination of a given function and some data, an instance, a fake sort of process that is facilitated by my code invoking the function with the data from its mailbox, whenever there is a message sent to the function by another "process". I'm not talking about erlang processes or "real" processes. So, you wouldn't have the problem of the "pid might not be allocated yet" because you would allocated it.

example in pseudo coffeerlangscript:

init-> pidOne = spawn(functionA, argumentlist), pidTwo = spawn(functionA, differentarguments), contextSet("pidOne",pidOne), contextSet("pidTwo",pidTwo), lookupData(bucket, key, pidOne), lookupData(bucket, key, functionB).

functionA(message) -> doStuff().

So, the here you're "spawning" two processes. For a function to act like a process it is written such that it takes any messages it get as arguments. I could set up their own contexts too, so "contextSet" in pidOne and pidTwo would be unique namespaces. LookupData, instead of taking a function to invoke, takes a process, and sends a message when it has retrieved the data off of the disk.

FunctionB could send a message or to pidOne and pidTwo (which it can find in the context).

So, the init phase is here, and later the start phase will be called. But the thread of execution would be: init, then the database queries happen in parallel, when they are successful, pidOne gets a message and functionB are called (possibly running in different environments.) FunctionB sends a message to pidOne and pidTwo, both of which are invoked with these new messages. When there are no more messages waiting for any of these pseudo processes, and no more database queries or other long running processes running in parallel, then the next phase is called.

If you're saying there's a better way to do this, my ears are open, I just need a little more explanation.