1. A method for managing task execution, the method including: receiving a specification of a plurality of tasks to be performed by respective functional modules; processing a flow of input data using a dataflow graph that includes nodes representing data processing components connected by links representing flows of data between data processing components; in response to at least one flow of data provided by at least one data processing component, generating a flow of messages; and in response to each of the messages in the flow of messages, performing an iteration of a set of tasks using corresponding functional modules, with dependency relationships between at least two of the tasks specified by the received specification.