Modeling distribution of performance measurements

Question

How would you mathematically model the distribution of repeated real life performance measurements - \"Real life\" meaning you are not just looping over the code in question, bu

Answer 1

The problem you describe is called "Distribution Fitting" and has nothing to do with performance measurements, i.e. this is generic problem of fitting suitable distribution to any gathered/measured data sample.

The standard process is something like that:

1. Guess the best distribution.
2. Run hypothesis tests to check how well it describes gathered data.
3. Repeat 1-3 if not well enough.

You can find interesting article describing how this can be done with open-source R software system here. I think especially useful to you may be function fitdistr.