TomYoung

An article in the IBM Systems Journal by the late Wayne Stevens (and P.M.?) stimulated my interest in flow based programming. Subsequently I developed a flow based IBM mainframe framework, FlowGo?, which was used to put one application into production at the large company from which I am retired.

Later, I was privileged to spend a full day reviewing FlowGo? with Mr. Stevens.

Following retirement, I developed a similar framework, the Data Flow Daemon, or DFD, in the C language, for the Linux/Unix? (and Windows Cygwin) environment.

The DFD uses a simple network definition script to run an application comprised of any number of components (existing programs, shell scripts, other DFD scripts, or special programs) connected via pipes, sockets, or shared memory messages (under development) across any number of heterogeneous nodes (DFD servers on local or remote platforms). Node selection can be determined at run time.

The Visual DFD, or VDFD, built using the DFD and GraphViz?, is a graphical development environment for creating, editing, and debugging network scripts and component sources.

Unfortunately, neither the DFD nor the VDFD are quite ready for prime time as of 1/1/2008.

                twyfbp@twyoung.com