Towards a better way to teach dynamic programming

Abstract

We give an overview of how various popular algorithm textbooks deal with the topic of dynamic programming, and we identify various issues with their expositions. In the second part of the paper we then give what we believe to be a better way of presenting the topic. While textbooks only contain the actual exposition, our paper also provides the rationale behind our choices. In particular, we managed to divide the topic into a sequence of simpler conceptual steps that are easier to learn.