I'm just going through a power electronics textbook to get up to speed in this area, even though I'm sure real-life handling of these converters is likely very different from the textbook.

And this question may sound very basic. What are the main variables of DC-to-DC converters? The inductance, capacitance, and resistance of the circuit (those that are within the physical devices and those within our control)? The switching waveforms based on the transistors and what's being fed by a microprocessor somewhere? Also, what's the importance of equivalent circuit modeling in real life, or is this something mentioned on the datasheet of a certain chip?

Thanks in advance for your input!