On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 at 18:11, John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
Hi everyone,

This is only semi-on-topic. I am looking for something like M-x compile for my org-files, but I don't want it to necessarily use Makefiles. I am looking for suggestions of existing solutions to this, or thoughts on how to implement this.

Actually, if it was possible to get M-x compile to run an elisp function instead of a make file, it might be all I need, but it looks like it runs shell commands.

So how about typing "M-: <elisp>" instead of "M-x compile" ?  Why involve other layers when Emacs can directly evaluate elisp?
 
Best wishes,
    Neil