Question

This was a problem taken in lectures on dynamic programming. Can anyone tell me why max(with_i,without_i) is used instead of with_i?

Here is the code-http://dpaste.com/766390/

Answer 1

you have a bunch of different paths through the binary decision tree
each time it decides to take or not take an item a different path is made
each path starts with a tale or a not take but the path will contain both
you want the path that provides the maximum