I am reading about Dynamic Programming from Cormen.
In the beginning of the chapter it says (relating to the term Dynamic Programming):
"Programming” in this context refers to a tabular method, not to writing computer code.
I can not really understand what this statement means.
I mean, I understand that the dynamic programming algorithms look up solutions, but I get a feeling that this point here defines something fundamental on the Dynamic Programming that I am not grasping.
Any help?
Dynamic programming was invented in the first half of the 20th century, when the term "computer" was a job title rather than an inanimate object. Teams of "computers" would fill out the table on paper using mechanical calculators, nobody was writing any computer code. In those days "programming" was primarily a math term, referring to solving a set of simultaneous equations. I suspect they're making the point because folks sometimes think that dynamic programming refers to some sort of self-modifying code.
Dynamic programming is a way to solve problems by decomposing them into sub-problems in a manner that the results of many of the sub-problems can be used many times throughout the solution. A table of the sub-problem results can be created, so that actual computations only need to be performed once per sub-problem.
