At our core, we're about individuals helping other individuals to learn something or work their way through a problem.
Then, wherever we can, we try to leverage that exchange, so the byproduct is as reusable by others as possible.
Most of our "typical" questions are a specific problem someone's encountered, with a solution that (hopefully) demonstrates a broadly applicable idea. Ideally, not only can that person apply it to other situations, but other people can, too.
But it requires you to have a problem to start learning. Code golf just takes that core idea and turns it on its head:
What if the "student" doesn't have a challenge, but wants one? What if they're trying to practice new skills, push themselves to learn new techniques, etc? And what if the expert's real talent to share is an ability to create challenges that others can learn from (and, dare we say it, enjoy learning from)?
- Is it one individual taking their talents and abilities, and sharing it with others? YUP
- Does the "expert's" contributions allow for multiple "learners" to benefit? YUP
- Is the overall by-product more knowledge/skill/ability in more people? YUP
As they say at Harvard Law School:
"You just can't argue with three 'yups.'"
(It may be worth mentioning that I attended no law schools, and have nary a clue what gets said at HLS. But still.)