I don't see how Linux being seen as a programming platform makes much if a difference. FreeBSD has a pretty large community as well, but the core community that puts together the OS seems to take much more pride in their work and having it be fully documented than any other open source organisation.
WiFi configuration is a particular problem where everything has awful documentation so when you need to set up your WiFi without NetworkManager or some other behemoth, much eye poking and googling on other devices is required.
FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD: man ifconfig (and dmesg)
As a rule, and this happened to me more than once, you might need to configure your network connection without the aid of Google and online documentation. Either that or you're stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere with no WiFi and no 3G and you want to read the docs.
I find it much easier to search Info documents for something than grepping compressed man pages.
Awk manpage: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=awk
Gawk info (in html): http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html
Both fully describe the capabilities of the software without resorting to compressing it.
Elegance in simplicity.