General :: Executing The Default Application Assigned To A File Type?

Using gnome terminal (Ubuntu 10.10), is there a way to execute the default application associated to a file type, only by typing its name, as it is possible with Windows ?

For example, say I create a mime type associated to every file with the pattern *.abc. Lets say I associate this file type to application 'my_app'.

If I have file 'my_file.abc' in current folder, what I want is that when I enter only 'my_file.abc' at the prompt, it executes 'my_app' feeding it with 'my_file.abc' as first argument. (assuming of course 'my_app' is in the path)