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Comment by smg | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure if average page load times are a good way of measuring site performance. I wish they published numbers like median, 75th percentile and 95 percentile load times.

Please see here for why average is not a good metric. http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html

It is especially dangerous for 37signals to do this because a large percentage of web developers look up to them for best practices.

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More numbers == harder to read. The point is not to give an accurate picture (as someone else pointed out, they certainly have more detailed internal metrics). The point is to make potential customers feel that their apps are fast and responsive. Hard numbers make that sound plausible. More detailed numbers would make the point diffuse and confusing.

I am not sure if either of us can accurately say what is the point "they" are trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that a large number of developers who look at 37signals for technical leadership could be dangerously misled into using average as a performance metric.

Leaving aside the technical issues even from a customer point of view using average to measure performance is pernicious. There are scenarios where the average remains the same while almost half their customers are experiencing load times that have doubled. What should the report card say in that case?

Bet they have better metrics. This is just eye candy.

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