You're probably thinking of the two papers referenced here, "The first papers on structured exception handling": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_handling#History

These came well after exception handling was first developed, but are by a John B Goodenough. However, I think it's a different John B Goodenough: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/about/leadership/display.cfm?custome...

This is really strange. How are there two people with the same rare surname who make history, and have not just the same first name, but even the same middle letter? I'm curious if that family name is so rare that they are actually related, and whether it's some custom in that family to name the kids that way.

I spent a while trying to find a family connection but didn't succeed. There is an American custom for fathers to name their sons after themselves, as if trying to deny them their own identity; Bill Gates is the third William Henry Gates in a row, for example.

My name is unusual for my generation - so much so that in my extended social circle I have just one namesake roughly my age.

One side effect is that I was memorable just by virtue of having such a name.

I suspect that in the case of both of the John Goodenoughs people generally never forgot that first impression - and that goes a long way.

We're in the Buckaroo Banzai dimension.

Maybe their parents liked rock music from the future. Go Johnny go, go.

His name was "John B Goodenough"? And John was good enough? You can't make this up.

I somewhat doubt that, though he was involved in some of the materials science behind RAM memory.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1449951/what-language-wa...

If it was not him, then it was another John B. Goodenough located not far from him in the mid-1970s (SofTech, Lowell, Massachusetts vs. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

try/catch, the ultimate goodenough ending.

"good enough" error handling