A simple message dispatcher in Coffeescript. This is a very naive implementation and probably doesn't do everything you'd want a message dispatcher to do. On the other hand, it's under 30 lines of code.

Messenger.coffee

class Messenger
	constructor: ->
		@subs = {}

	register: (type, caller, func) =>
		return unless type? and caller? and func?

		@subs[type] = [] unless @subs[type]?		

		existing = null

		for s in @subs[type]
			if s.caller is caller and s.func is func
				existing = s
				break

		@subs[type].push { caller: caller, func: func } unless existing?

	unregister: (type, caller) =>
		return unless @subs[type]? and caller?

		@subs[type] = (s for s in @subs[type] when s.caller isnt caller)

	send: (type, params...) =>
		return unless @subs[type]?
		
		sub.func params... for sub in @subs[type]

Usage

var messenger = new Messenger();

//register to receive the refresh message
//normally, 'this' would be a view model or other object
messenger.register("refresh", this, this.refresh);

//now send the message every 60 seconds
window.setInterval(function() { messenger.send("refresh"); }, 60000)