The invention provides, in one aspect, an improved digital data processing system of the type having a plurality of execution resources, including a central processing unit (CPU) and one or more further execution resources (or "components"). The improvement is characterized by a process executing on the central processing unit that selects portions of an applications program and effects their execution on one or more of the further execution resources, while effecting execution of remaining portions of the application on the CPU. The further execution resources, according to related aspects of the invention, can include co-processors, accelerators, controllers or other devices, of the "plug-and-play" variety or otherwise. They may provide specialized functionality for any of fast Fourier transforms, image reconstruction and synthetic aperture radar algorithms, to name a few. Those resources may be disposed locally or remotely with respect to the CPU.