The latest articles on DEV Community by Philip Braham (@philbraham). https://dev.to/philbraham https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3992359%2F98e0dccf-c9ef-463e-bb6e-f2d39a6cb77e.png https://dev.to/philbraham en Philip Braham Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:50:34 +0000 https://dev.to/philbraham/universal-message-manager-2kdl https://dev.to/philbraham/universal-message-manager-2kdl <p>Back in the early '90s we were working on automating an aluminium smelter in Australia. We developed a system called Message Director: a publish and subscribe system that allowed applications to communicate on bus where messages were published, and subscriptions made to, a director application. All messages were logged and applications could be changed or added to without effecting other applications. It was incredibly successful. We finished the automation with a team of 3 people within time and under budget. </p> <p>In a publish and subscribe system, senders and receivers of messages are ideally not associated. However, the problem with the original system was that because data was binary data a receiver of a message had to know the format of the messages it was receiving. </p> <p>Subsequently I went on the develop the concept into a more universal system called Universal Message Manager (UMM). In UMM all messages are self-describing. Small apps (called agents) can be written that have a simple task: receive these messages, do a task and send those messages. In one example that comes with the project. we have a tank monitoring system. A tank monitoring agent sends messages on the tank level, a pump agent receives messages when the tank level is below 10% and above 90%, switches on and off accordingly, and sends out confirmations messages. These messages can be seen on the screen, logged and a database application logs them the a database.</p> <p>UMM is ideal for teaching as the agents are self-contained but can be used together to form a complex system. Another example on our website is a parcel sorting machine. The agents in the project are written in Python with a C option available. Agents can be written in any language.</p> <p>The UMM project and documentation can be downloaded from <a href="https://umm.braham.net" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://umm.braham.net</a>. It is free for non-commercial use.</p> <p>We're particularly interested in people who want to use UMM for teaching.</p> webdev python discuss automation