[pcwalton]

> Explicit returns are frowned upon

That's not true in any of the code I write. I prefer explicit returns in all of my Rust code. The only time I use the "result from last expression" return is when it's the last statement in the function.

The recommended way to deal with errors in Rust is "try!". Using "try!" essentially gives you the ergonomics of exceptions. You should prefer that to match or .and_then(), which are verbose.