Mean or median for API response times?
Tests if you know latency is skewed and outlier-sensitive. Pick median over mean because hiccups distort the mean, but note median hides tail latency. Advocate for p95, p99, and max. Red flag: defending mean as representative or ignoring tail behavior.
Tests your grasp of skewed distributions and operational reality. A strong answer chooses median over mean because API latency is multi-modal with hiccups (GC pauses, VM stalls) that render the mean meaningless. Immediately pivot to the bigger issue: median alone is a marketing metric that hides tail latency. You must report percentiles, especially p95, p99, and maximum, because request fanout makes tail events common. Red flag: claiming mean is fine for SLA reporting or dismissing max as noise.
Read the original → bravenewgeek.com
- #latency
- #percentiles
- #metrics
- #distributions
- #tail-latency
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