"My real point is that there is nothing to be gained by modeling circuit components or even circuits as objects" That directly contradicts how SICP teaches it:

"My real point is that there is nothing to be gained by modeling circuit components or even circuits as objects" That directly contradicts how SICP teaches it: Our computational model of a circuit will be composed of objects that correspond to the elementary components from which the circuit is constructed. (p. 273, 2nd ed.) Elsewhere they say: If we have been successful in our system organization, then to add a new feature or debug an old one we will have to work on only a localized part of the system. (p. 217) ... which sounds a lot like the benefits you deny. Do you really think SICP is wrong to teach this way? I don't. I quoted a more general passage where they introduce object modeling here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6910292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6910292. But it seems striking that you would have brought up circuit simulation as when not to do object modeling, as it is the very domain they use to illustrate the strength of the approach.