Is Using .NET 4.0 Tuples in my C# Code a Poor Design Decision?

Question

With the addition of the Tuple class in .net 4, I have been trying to decide if using them in my design is a bad choice or not. The way I see it, a Tuple can be a shortcut

Answer 1

Similar to keyword var, it is intended as a convenience - but is as easily abused.

In my most humble opinion, do not expose Tuple as a return class. Use it privately, if a service or component's data structure requires it, but return well-formed well-known classes from public methods.

// one possible use of tuple within a private context. would never
// return an opaque non-descript instance as a result, but useful
// when scope is known [ie private] and implementation intimacy is
// expected
public class WorkflowHost
{
    // a map of uri's to a workflow service definition 
    // and workflow service instance. By convention, first
    // element of tuple is definition, second element is
    // instance
    private Dictionary> _map = 
        new Dictionary> ();
}