Jan van den Hemel showed how to make cables using cloth simulation.
Jan van den Hemel, the Blender Secrets book author, shared another short tutorial. This time, he explained how to create cables with physics. For this, he used cloth simulation and a Skin modifier.
The artist is working on two more cable tutorials right now, so stay tuned and check out this tutorial on how to make cables with collision:
Also, check out these tutorials by Jan van den Hemel: