The difference between dynamic programming and divide and conquer

Divide and Conquer

Divide and Conquer works by dividing the problem into sub-problems, conquer each sub-problem recursively and combine these solutions.

Dynamic Programming

Dynamic Programming is a technique for solving problems with overlapping subproblems. Each sub-problem is solved only once and the result of each sub-problem is stored in a table ( generally implemented as an array or a hash table) for future references. These sub-solutions may be used to obtain the original solution and the technique of storing the sub-problem solutions is known as memoization.

You may think of DP = recursion + re-use

A classic example to understand the difference would be to see both these approaches towards obtaining the nth fibonacci number. Check this material from MIT.

Source :StackOverflow

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17975682/difference-between-dynamic-programming-and-divide-and-conquer