Dynamic Programming II Parallel and Sequential Data Structures and Algorithms , 15 - 210 ( Spring 2013 )

The top-down approach is based on running the recursive code as is, generating implicitly the recursion structure from the root of the DAG down to the leaves. Each time a solution to a smaller instance is found for the first time it generates a mapping from the input argument to its solution. This way when we come across the same argument a second time we can just look up the solution. This process is called memoization, and the table used to map the arguments to solutions is called a memo table.