A method, apparatus and tangible medium for creating and executing a
computer dataflow. A plurality of components is defined, each
representing a computer-implemented computational process that is
performed on one or more inputs and that generates one or more outputs. A
graphical user interface is provided allowing a user to visually create
the computer dataflow on a user display by selecting from a library of
components, connecting the component's input terminals with output
terminals. The input terminals graphically correspond to inputs to the
component's predefined computational algorithm and the output terminals
graphically correspond to outputs generated by the component's predefined
computational algorithm. Without user intervention, the plurality of said
selected components is distributed for execution across a plurality of
machines and automatically executes upon receiving a minimum number of
inputs.