Digital computer programming principles

This is the principle which we will invoke in every case to set up a functional equation. It appears in a form that is admirably suited to the powers of the digital computer. At the same time, every device that can be employed to reduce the number of variables is of the greatest value, and it is one of the attractive features of dynamic programming that room is left for ingenuity in using the special features of the problem to this end. 

In practice the field is dominated by the use of digital computers because of the mass of numbers needed to quantify the operating and engineering variables and the many iterations required to obtain convergence of the solutions to the equations. This is not a book on computers, but all computers must be fed with programs based squarely on the principles to which this text is devoted. 

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