Measuring the performance of a program means keeping track of the consumption of resources used by the program. In addition to simple technical performance, such as looking closely at RAM and CPU, it is useful to monitor the execution time of a certain task. Tasks such as increasing sorting of a set of values can take a long time depending on the algorithm used. Before delving into optimizing an algorithm, it is useful to understand how to measure the execution time of a program. In this article, I will first introduce the concept of time and then we will explore some beginner techniques for making simplistic measurements ― on the order of microseconds. Understanding Time Measuring the execution time of a compiled or run-time program is more difficult than you might think, since many methods are often not transferable to other platforms. Choosing the right method will depend on your operating system, programming language, and even what is meant by “time”. Wa...