I'd have to think a bit more about other differences (when the start of the semester isn't upon me). I do see why NamedTuples could feel more in line with the DCIC style, but I also see the challenges that students have jumping into full classes after the syntactic brevity of Pyret and Python.

I vaguely recall having problems with `typing` at the time (2019ish), and I didn't want to force it on the students. I also like dataclasses because they provide a lightweight use of the class concept. I was setting that up for my students because they were going from DCIC into a course on OO. >>

When I wrote the first version of the materials that became the early part of DCIC, multiple people who used Python in practice more than I did recommended data classes. I seem to recall trying NamedTuples a couple of years later. >>