I'm sure you know this (since in my experience the history of the name is usually taught together with the technique), but for those reading along: the name "dynamic programming" originates from the late forties, early fifties. While the "office politics"-related motivation Richard Bellman gives for the name cannot be completely true due to anachronisms[0], it still fits with terms that made sense at the time, before the modern usage of "programming" existed:
> The word dynamic was chosen by Bellman to capture the time-varying aspect of the problems (...). The word programming referred to the use of the method to find an optimal program, in the sense of a military schedule for training or logistics. This usage is the same as that in the phrases linear programming and mathematical programming, a synonym for mathematical optimization.
I fully agree that would be nice if we relegated "dynamic programming" to a confusing historical umbrella term, and switched to less confusing names, like the ones you suggested. In that sense it is similar to "trie" - it's a funny pun, but incredibly impractical for verbal communication especially. It would be so much better if we all decided to just use "prefix tree" or "prefix search tree" and avoid the ambiguity.
> The word dynamic was chosen by Bellman to capture the time-varying aspect of the problems (...). The word programming referred to the use of the method to find an optimal program, in the sense of a military schedule for training or logistics. This usage is the same as that in the phrases linear programming and mathematical programming, a synonym for mathematical optimization.
I fully agree that would be nice if we relegated "dynamic programming" to a confusing historical umbrella term, and switched to less confusing names, like the ones you suggested. In that sense it is similar to "trie" - it's a funny pun, but incredibly impractical for verbal communication especially. It would be so much better if we all decided to just use "prefix tree" or "prefix search tree" and avoid the ambiguity.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History