Programming is all about modeling, one tries to choose the model that's most appropriate. Personally, I like to think in terms of objects, classes and the relations between them.

Using OO will not guarantee that one ends up with clean and nice code, on the contrary, I've seen awful things done with OO. Using a structured non-OO approach can result in nice and clean code, but both are beside the point I wanted to make. I guess I haven't expressed myself clearly, I should have said that I tend to end up with a clean and elegant model using OO techniques since it reflects the way I look at the world (and hence the problems I'm trying to solve). Of course, it all depends on one's personal mode of thinking.

And incidently, I've no degree in computer science, I'm just a humble physicist. -gjb-