* Wildcards only work with filenames, not with command names
o ta* does not find the tabulate command
That's not true. The shell doesn't discriminate between wildcards in
the first word.
1 $ cd /tmp
2 $ rm -f date
3 $ echo echo foo >date
4 $ hash -r
5 $ dat?
6 2006-07-15 17:17:57 +0100 Sat
7 $ chmod +x date
8 $ PATH=.:$PATH
9 $ hash -r
10 $ dat?
11 foo
12 $
(5) The wildcard expands dat?' to date' which then gets looked for
through $PATH finding /bin/date.
(10) Once /tmp/date is executable, that gets found instead iff `.' is
earlier than /bin in $PATH.
I agree that `dat?' in /tmp won't search $PATH for something that
matches. But that's different from saying wildcards don't work with
command names.