Realtime Multiuser 2D Board Implementation

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

> I feel a little embarassed asking this question, given the 
> depth of other questions on this list but...

Don't be! :-)
 
> Design A
> Make up a tile module and spawn tiles when I bring the server 
> up, using inter-server messaging to move the client-connections about.
> 
> OR
> 
> Design B
> I attempt to keep track with updates to a single canvas, a-la 
> board.erl.
> 
> Which is going to yield better response times and performance 
> in scaling?

IMHO, if you are just exploring, you shouldn't think about performance yet. 

The design issue you raise is: should tiles be processes? 
Well, are the tiles "alive"? Do they have their own behaviour and activities
to perform in parallel, or are they just receiver of events that they pass
on to the board itself? 

Consider also that when displaying the board, you'll still need to gather
all information to a single place. If the tiles don't do anything special,
the choice is really between B and A+B.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck!
Regards,
Vlad