Manhattan is great for discrete components but doesn't work that well for digital with small smd ICs. So it's best suited to analog but for digital, prototype

Manhattan is great for discrete components but doesn't work that well for digital with small smd ICs. So it's best suited to analog but for digital, prototype boards -such as the one from Mike's Electric Stuff linked in the article- are pretty good for prototypes or one-off products. There were popular methods in the past, like wire-wrapping, but unfortunately, they are no longer favoured. That used to be a good way to build fairly complex digital boards. Nowadays, going direct to PCB is also a viable solution since they are very cheap and reasonably fast to get.