Benchmarking. We take two competing pieces of code - could be as simpler as a one liner or as complex as an entire web framework. Then, we put them up against each other (iterations per second). At the end of the task, we come up with a single metric, a score. We use the score to compare the two competing options.
In Ruby, the Benchmark module provides methods to measure and report the time used to execute Ruby code. http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.0.0/libdoc/benchmark/rdoc/Benchmark.html
Profiling. Profiling your program is a way to determining which methods are called and how long each method take to complete.