Dynamic Programming

Memoization vs tabulation, recognizing overlapping-subproblems + optimal-substructure shapes.

Why we need this / what value this brings

DP is the topic most engineers rate as hardest to pattern-match under interview pressure — deliberate practice recognizing the shape pays off disproportionately.

When to use this

A problem has optimal substructure and overlapping subproblems (recursion with repeated identical calls) — the naive recursive solution is exponential and a DP table fixes it.

How to use or implement this

Always write the brute-force recursive solution first, identify the repeated subproblems, then add memoization before converting to bottom-up tabulation if needed.

Research questions

• A Challenge series building up from 1D DP (climbing stairs) to 2D DP (edit distance, knapsack) would build the pattern-recognition muscle incrementally.

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Empty folder — drop notes, links, and findings here as you research.