Thanks for the puzzle. Has the following code any shortcomings?

use strict;
use warnings;

sub first_last_map(&&&@)
{
    my $code  = shift;
    my $first_code = shift;
    my $last_code  = shift;

    ($first_code->($_[0]),
     (map { $code->($_) } @_[ 1 .. $#_ - 1]),
     $last_code->($_[-1])
     )
}

print for first_last_map(
    sub { "<li>$_[0]</li>\n" },
    sub { "<li class=\"first\">$_[0]</li>\n" },
    sub { "<li class=\"last\">$_[0]</li>\n" },
    qw( alpha beta gamma delta ));
[download]

I am not really happy with the sub { ... } arguments. I would like to be able to give multiple blocks instead:

print for first_last_map(
    { "<li>$_[0]</li>\n" },
    { "<li class=\"first\">$_[0]</li>\n" },
    { "<li class=\"last\">$_[0]</li>\n" },
    qw( alpha beta gamma delta ));
[download]

But written as above they are parsed as hash constructors :-(. Is there a coercion I could use instead?