[maffyoo]

i just dont agree with this at all. Mental models make no claims about expertise they are abstractions of accepted knowledge and capture the essence of something. They are, after all, called models. Maybe some have mis-appropriated mental models as being as short cut to expertise they simply arent and cannot be. They are simply models, abstractions of what is known. I dont think anyone is saying you will be smarter but you may be enlightened. Models are good at this. Imagine an abstraction of a computer. when all you know is that a computer is a box then your awareness of what that means is restricted to a cable coming our of a box with a switch in it. Take that a level deeper. look at the abstract model of computer architeture and you are then enlightened with the knowledge that there is a processor that calculates things, there is storage to store things you may want to use and there are primitive outputs for graphics and input from a keyboard or mouse. You dont need to know about nand gates, clean room fabrication, cores, ALUs, storage topology of anything to gain some valuable insight from this abstract model. Indeed im pretty sure many succesful software engineers dont really delve much deeper than this but the model, nevertheless, is useful. I cannot guarantee everyone will understand the model but i know many will and i know it will provide valuable insight. For me this is it with mental models. they convey the essence key information but absolutely not expertise and i am still wondering why many people, as you, are trying to argue the case from this perspective it simply isnt the case.