[sanderjd]

You should keep an open mind about this until you've written and read a reasonable amount of rust code. Rust isn't the easiest language to write or to grok-at-a-glance, but the semicolon thing is a real red herring. It's a really interesting decision, but it really isn't a big deal in practice. There are always other more at-a-glance clues that you either do or don't want a value.