If you want control of the situation, and are lucky enough to be the party with the running car, take the keys from the dead car and hold them. Tell the victim that you're hooking up all the cables, but they're allowed to call "stop" if they don't like what they're seeing.
Then start your car, let things charge up, and hand the keys over when you're ready for the victim to try.
There are two sorts of victims out there, legitimate ones who either left a light on or just discovered their battery expired. And ghetto trash who "know it all" and who'll be in their car hitting the key seconds after you make the connection. You'll be lucky if the latter don't "test" your battery and alternator by sparking the clips together.
As far as damaging electronics, if the recipient car has, say, an arced connection to a battery post that causes high resistance, this also eliminates or reduces that battery's ability to filter power. If a donor comes along with an already running car and starts scraping the jumper leads against painted metal, sparks flying, for a "better connection" I can see that causing issues.
