ABSTRACT
The conceptual dimension of dynamic programming consists of a cluster of ideas whose profound simplicity presents the dynamic programming scholar setting out to elucidate them with a difficult task. This is so because to be able to do them justice, one would need to explicate them in terms of the techniques that make them work, which would entail interlacing a detailed analysis of the techniques themselves with the discussion. But such a strategy stands to accomplish the precise opposite of what is sought. Combining an exposition of the techniques with the discussion of the ideas is more likely to bury the latter in a mass of technical detail than to bring out their full meaning.
