A comparison to exa[0] would be interesting as well

[0] https://github.com/ogham/exa

I am on a much faster system right now. From 2 sample runs of each, ls is consistently way (~5 times) faster than exa:

exa:

    run1:
    0.03user 0.02system 0:00.11elapsed 56%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 8672maxresident)k
    208inputs+0outputs (1major+1333minor)pagefaults 0swaps

    run2:
    0.04user 0.00system 0:00.13elapsed 42%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 8560maxresident)k
    0inputs+0outputs (0major+1310minor)pagefaults 0swaps

    run1:
    0.00user 0.01system 0:00.02elapsed 69%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 3812maxresident)k
    0inputs+0outputs (0major+303minor)pagefaults 0swaps

    run2:
    0.01user 0.00system 0:00.02elapsed 62%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 3840maxresident)k
    0inputs+0outputs (0major+305minor)pagefaults 0swaps