1. A method of providing performance metric data comprising: displaying a set of computer instruction elements of a current version of an application using an integrated development environment application executed by a processor; receiving a user selection of at least one of the displayed computer instruction elements of the set of computer instruction elements using the integrated development environment application; sending to a performance data server a request for a value of a first performance metric associated with the user-selected computer instruction element, wherein the first performance metric value relates to the performance of the user-selected computer instruction element executing in a production environment and wherein the request contains parameters describing a type of the user-selected computer instruction element and a data structure associated with the user-selected computer instruction element; receiving a first value representing an estimate for the first performance metric for the user-selected computer instruction element executing in the production environment for the current version of the application, the estimate being based on a second performance metric associated with a corresponding computer instruction element matching the parameters of the request, wherein the corresponding computer instruction element is different than the user-selected computer instruction element; receiving, from the performance data server, a second value for the first performance metric for a prior version of the application; and displaying the first value and the second value of the performance metric with the user-selected computer instruction element using the integrated development environment application with a warning that a value for the first performance metric for the current version of the application is not available.