Sure, but go the extra step: Drop the mandatory :, make just "ls" run ls. Then you need a syntax to get at the programming language, not the other way around.

Sure, but go the extra step: Drop the mandatory :, make just "ls" run ls. Then you need a syntax to get at the programming language, not the other way around. That's all that's happening here. shok could have put ruby or python or some other language behind its {} syntax. That would be less NIH-syndrome, but maybe there's merit to trying something more ambitious. Or maybe not.