I’m still on my personal mission to explore and understand the value of metrics as a fundamental part of tech. We’ve entered an age of instrumentation, and I feel like I’ve been left behind. I’ve seen metrics used to monitor complex systems, analyze behavior (including that of software, hardware, and humans) and track the changes in machine learning algorithms. Sensor data can tell me when there’s too much carbon monoxide in the air, or if my online store crashes on Black Friday. Metrics can help keep factory workers safe and track my grocery delivery. Those are all pretty dang impressive, and it’s easy enough to see the value when other people explain their metrics to me.

I decided that the easiest way for me to explore the value of metrics in my own work was to instrument an application that had value to me. Enter "Paper Pirates": a browser-based, Node.js game I built that has no purpose but to be fun (find the repo here). There is no winning "Paper Pirates" — the only winning move is not to play.

Source: DZone