[akhmatova]

Functions that accept dicts are a nightmare to extend and modify.

Compared to what? I see the article's point about dicts being, like everything else in programming, a tradeoff with benefits and limitations. But the article's needless dramatization of a pretty mundane point (and the button-pushing title) are, to these jaded eyes, a definite turn-off.

Meanwhile I'll keep using dicts when the use case calls for them, thank you. As a sibling commenter put it:

If you don't know how the data should be used, it's often a different story.

Exactly. The whole point (and benefit) of dicts is that they're squishy. Sometimes you need squishy.