Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2016 / Functional programming, design and analysis of algorithms / 6 / a / Solution

Dynamic programming solves a problem by storing solutions to overlapping subproblems and combining them according to a recurrence. Each dynamic programming state describes all information needed by subsequent choices. Evaluating states in an order where their dependencies are already available avoids recomputing the same subproblem. A typical optimization recurrence chooses the best transition; a decision recurrence instead combines feasible transitions with Boolean disjunction.