Methods and systems for developing data flow programs

A computer-readable medium containing instructions that cause a data processing system to perform a method for developing a data flow program comprising code segments that operate on data in memory, the method comprising the steps of:

• dividing the memory into blocks;
• assigning at least a portion of the data and at least one code segment to each block;
• determining a dependency imparted by a first block depending on data assigned to a second block;
• and
• displaying a graph comprising the blocks and the determined dependency.

A method in a data processing system for developing a data flow program comprising code segments that operate on data in a memory, the method comprising the steps of:

• dividing into blocks the memory that stores the data;
• for each block, assigning at least a portion of the data to the block and assigning at least one of the code segments to the block;
• storing data read and data write identifiers for each code segment, the data read and data write identifiers identifying at least a portion of the data read or written by the code segment;
• determining whether dependencies exist among the blocks such that a first block depends on data assigned to a second block using the read and write identifiers;
• generating a directed acyclic graph comprising nodes and arcs between the nodes by assigning the blocks to the nodes and by assigning the dependencies to the arcs;
• displaying the directed acyclic graph;
• initiating execution of the code segments;
• while the code segments are executing,
• determining which nodes in the graph are unexecuted nodes and which nodes in the graph are executed nodes;
• and
• displaying the unexecuted nodes in a manner visually distinctive from the executed nodes.

A data processing system for developing a data flow program comprising code segments that operate on data in memory, the data processing system comprising:

• means for apportioning a memory into regions and associating the data and the code segments with the regions;
• means for determining dependencies between the regions;
• and
• means for displaying a graph of nodes that are assigned regions, and arcs depicting the dependencies between the regions.