There was a pretty funny, to me and my buddy, moment in our Digital Communications course when we were learning this. We were both dual EE/CS students while the

There was a pretty funny, to me and my buddy, moment in our Digital Communications course when we were learning this. We were both dual EE/CS students while the rest of the class was straight EE. The professor is drawing out the trellis diagrams and going through this elaborate description of things and most people (including me and my buddy) were completely lost. At some point, though, he and I both had the same lightbulb moment. We turned to each other and simultaneously just whispered “it’s a dynamic programming problem”. And then it was all easy from there.