My initial proposal is to change the [on-topic](https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic) wording to:

> ### Questions you may ask:
> 
> ...
> 
> [Development topics regarding Ubuntu](https://meta.askubuntu.com/q/20258/1165986).  Note that general-programming questions are better suited for [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com) and may be closed or migrated.

With the link to this Meta post (or a future Community Wiki) with examples (to be added) of questions that would be appropriate and those that would not.

The small wording change puts the burden on the question being *about* Ubuntu, rather than just something that the developer may be tangentially using.  It also prevents [boat-meme](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/14486/902710) types of questions, where *"on Ubuntu"* is appended just to try to make a general programming question on-topic.

---

#### Examples and guidance for on-topic questions

* An answer to the question is likely to be Ubuntu-specific.

* Shell-scripting questions, within reason, since shell-scripting is a common system-administration task of high importance to Ubuntu users.

More to be added

#### Examples and guidance for off-topic questions

To be added