Granted, in python, I'd call the use of a typed dict a smell. If you're able to spend the time creating the typed dict, just promote it to a dataclass. Using python ~3.9, this will look like
@dataclasses.dataclass # or @attr.s
class MyStruct:
a: List[str]
b: int|float
t: MyStruct|Tuple[str,str]
But MyStruct will be an actual object that can be manipulated as an object. And if you want to accept any object that fits that interface, instead of just instances of MyStruct,
class MyStructTmpl(Protocol):
a: List[str]
b: int|float
Then
def f(thing: MyStructTmpl|Tuple[str,str]) -> bool:
return True
f(MyStruct(a=['a'], b=2))
would typecheck.
In JS having the typed-dict type makes sense because you're often working with arbitrary objects with who knows what attributes, but in python that isn't the case. There's fairly succinct and powerful tools (now, anyway) to define record types.
