It's also not really true. Consider a problem like edit distance, which is solved using an n^2 dynamic program. What are the n separate problems there? Sure,

It's also not really true. Consider a problem like edit distance, which is solved using an n^2 dynamic program. What are the n separate problems there? Sure, you're filling out a table with a nested loop, but that's a very mechanistic view. I don't believe that treating the n outer iterations as separate problems gives any real insight.