Using the dataclasses module

Starting with Python 3.7 the dataclasses module is available. This module offers a superclass we can use to create classes with clearly-stated attribute definitions. The core use case for a dataclass is a simple definition of the attributes of a class.

The attributes are used to automatically create common attribute access methods, including __init__(), __repr__(), and __eq__(). Here's an example:

from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Optional, cast

@dataclass
class RTD:
    rate: Optional[float]
    time: Optional[float]
    distance: Optional[float]

    def compute(self) -> "RTD":
        if (
            self.distance is None and self.rate is not None 
            and self.time is not None
        ):
            self.distance = self.rate * self.time
        elif (
            self.rate is None and self.distance is not None 
  ...