Performance metrics and models are prerequisites for scientific understanding and optimization. This paper introduces a new footprint-based theory and reviews the research in the past four decades leading to the new theory. The review groups the past work into metrics and their models in particular those of the reuse distance, metrics conversion,models of shared cache, performance and optimization, and other related techniques. Performance metrics and models are prerequisites for scientific understanding and optimization. This paper introduces a new footprint-based theory and reviews the research in the past four decades leading to the new theory. The review groups the past work into metrics and their models in specifically those of the reuse distance, metrics conversion, models of shared cache, performance and optimization, and other related techniques.