When I worked for deHavilland in the early '80's, during the infancy of the Dash 8, it was designed with the aid of rather basic computer assistance. I think that even though computers were involved, there was a lot of old school slide rule calculations which really made the plane.
Following the fatigue test program of the "iron bird" airframe, the wing was to be pulled to failure. I recall that they installed the longest stroke hydraulic pull cylinder they could find - 8 feet of stroke. They pulled up on the wingtip with it (with the wing root very firmly held in the frame). The cylinder used up all 8 feet of stroke, yet the wing did not break. I don't recall if it "yielded", but had that been done in flight, the aircraft would still have been whole. Imagine a Dash 8 wingtip displaced 8 feet up, and not broken!