This paper introduces the concept of taskflow-oriented programming by way of a universal, configurable client that (1) reads user-programmed interconnections of distributed component programs as task instances, (2) dynamically renders an interactive GUI of all interconnected components as a hierarchical taskflow, and (3) dynamically creates a schedule to execute component programs concurrently, serially, or not at all, depending on the user-defined runtime configuration of the taskflow topology. The implementation of the client, including the transparent access to components via a TCP protocol using telnet-, ssh-, http-, or socket-based clients, is presented in the companion paper.

Conceptually, taskflow-oriented programming relies on a recursive schema of encapsulated blackbox (whitebox) component instances. Each encapsulated component instance contains five primitive tasks: a blackbox (whitebox) component, an eight-state finite-state-machine with a datapath (FSMD), a ControlJoin, a ControlFork, and a DataMux. User-programmed interconnections of distributed component programs are captured in the ControlJoin and ControlFork of each component instance. The taskflow schedule is derived from the underlying TaskGraph of asynchronously interacting FSMDs, each supporting a simple hand-shaking protocol with the attached blackbox (whitebox) component.