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From: hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Means - was Re: Benchmarks in August IEEE Micro
Message-ID: <2098@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Oct-86 09:34:54 EDT
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Posted: Fri Oct  3 09:34:54 1986
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Organization: NC State Univ.
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The quantity being measured can also affect the choice of the appropriate
mean!  E.g., are you measuring speed or time?  (An old puzzle is relevant:
After driving one mile at 30 mph, how fast do you have to drive the second
mile in order to average 60 mph?  The answer is *not* 90 mph - and the
arithmetic average is *not* correct in this context.  Hint: look at the
harmonic mean.)
I have seen benchmarks presented both ways - both in time (e.g. seconds) and
in speed (executions/second).
Additionally, several people have correctly pointed out that the benchmark
elements should be weighted to reflect the frequency of occurance of that
type of work in *your* job stream.  This is a very important point which
probably surpasses the importance of the harmonic/arithmetic/geometric mean
differences.

--henry schaffer  n c state univ