Question: I am pretty sure I am stating a risky question here, and maybe it is the hot weather that makes me see things in a different way, but what is the main goal of what we are doing on AU? 

The reason for asking is that -I imagine increasingly- AU is flooded with programming- related questions with a *seemingly* realistic value, but actually can be solved in one or two lines in *any* language. Nevertheless they generate a *huge* voting activity and a lot of answers, as if they were life saving issues.

Although I, as well as many others, benefit of it every now and then, I have the feeling these questions, even if it is `bash`, `grep`, `awk` or whatever language, should be asked elsewhere, unless they have at least some *real* practical value and are related to an existing problem of OP. It is a bit weird that maybe (just a guess) 50% of my reputation I earned in less than 5% of my spent time here, and mostly on answering questions, that, if we are honest, are about completely nothing.

Answer: 
Well, this forum is for asking questions and getting them solved. As long as they are related to Ubuntu, then asking those questions is ok. because AU is about learning and getting to know Ubuntu much better with the help of other people from around the world.
Ask Ubuntu is about solving any and all Ubuntu-related problems, rather, **Ask Ubuntu is about generating documentation** for Ubuntu in Q&A format collaboratively.

What's the purpose of documentation? Obviously, it's only there to help users solve their problems, but there are some problems that documentation is simply not the solution to. 

(Programming can benefit from documentation, for example, but something like vim vs emacs battle can't be resolved through documentation.)