1. A computer-based system for executing state-dependent processes, comprising: a command processor that receives commands in a command stream and that manages a global state responsive to global context events in the command stream; and a plurality of processing blocks that receive the commands in the command stream and that manage respective block states responsive to block context events in the command stream, wherein each respective processing block executes a process on data in a data stream based on the global state and the block state of the respective processing block.