Lambda the Ultimate

A couple of weeks ago (the database LtU seems corrupted so I can't find the link) I posted about my theory of data parallel computing. I make a bunch of claims (not necessarily in that paper) why my idea can lead to more efficient software than some other parallel programming systems, and I was wondering why.

At some level, my Integrative Model for Parallelism is based on dataflow, as an Intermediate Representation, to be exact. And I think one reason dataflow approaches can be efficient is that the dataflow graph is a representation of the program in the program. By building up a dataflow graph, the program reconstructs a limited version of itself that can then be analyzed by a higher level tool than either the compiler or a traditional runtime.

My question to this esteemed audience: surely I'm not the first one to observe this. Is there a formalism, or at least a vocabulary to describe this phenomenon?

(Background info: I know that dataflow is a 1980, early 90s at best, phenomenon, but it's been in resurgence, with OpenMP tasks (OMP v3 and later), Intel TBB & CnC, and dedicated linear algebra software such as SuperMatrix and Quark. In all these cases the C/Fortran program creates a task graph out of ordinary function pointers and submits it to some scheduler which can be defined on a fairly high level, in a library itself written in C.)