8. The assumption that memory address space is globally flat and that the array reference `foo[-1]' is necessarily valid. Problem: this fails at 0, or other places on segment-addressed machines like Intel chips (yes, segmentation is universally considered a {brain-damaged} way to design machines (see {moby}), but that is a separate issue).
9. The assumption that objects can be arbitrarily large with no special considerations. Problem: this fails on segmented architectures and under non-virtual-addressing environments.
10. The assumption that the stack can be as large as memory.
Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or almost anything
else without virtual addressing and a paged stack.
11. The assumption that bits and addressable units within an object
are ordered in the same way and that this order is a constant of
nature. Problem: this fails on {big-endian} machines.
12. The assumption that it is meaningful to compare pointers to different objects not located within the same array, or to objects of different types. Problem: the former fails on segmented architectures, the latter on word-oriented machines or others with multiple pointer formats.
13. The assumption that an `int' is 32 bits, or (nearly equivalently) the assumption that `sizeof(int) == sizeof(long)'. Problem: this fails on PDP-11s, 286-based systems and even on 386 and 68000 systems under some compilers.
14. The assumption that `argv[]' is writable. Problem: this fails in many embedded-systems C environments and even under a few flavors of Unix.
Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism even if he or she has never seen a VAX. Some of these assumptions (esp. 2—5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and became endemic years before the VAX. The terms `vaxocentricity' and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.
:vdiff: /vee'dif/ /v.,n./ Visual diff. The operation of finding differences between two files by {eyeball search}. The term `optical diff' has also been reported, and is sometimes more specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot differences. Though this method is poor for detecting omissions in the `rear' file, it can also be used with printouts of graphics, a claim few if any diff programs can make. See {diff}.
:veeblefester: /vee'b*l-fes`tr/ /n./ [from the "Born Loser" comix via Commodore; prob. originally from "Mad" Magazine's `Veeblefeetzer' parodies ca. 1960] Any obnoxious person engaged in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management. Antonym of {hacker}. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}.