What's the puzzle to this answer?

Question

This is the answer:

wgc 
wc g
wc g
w gc
wg c
g wc
g wc
 wgc

But what is the puzzle?

_{This requires some knowledge, but I'm pretty sure that most people on this site do have the required knowledge, so I didn't apply the "knowledge" tag. Also, this is the first puzzle I'm posting here, so constructive feedback is welcome!}

Answer 1

The puzzle is

the old chestnut about transporting things from one side of a river to another using a boat of limited capacity, without ever leaving two things unattended one of which will eat the other.

So

w,g,c are wolf, goat, cabbage

and the provided answer shows

which side of the river each is on at any given time. All start on the left (along with our protagonist, not explicitly shown); then our protagonist gets in the boat with the goat and brings it to the right side, and returns alone. (Wolves don't eat cabbages.) Then across comes the cabbage, leaving the wolf alone on the left; the goat would eat the cabbage so it gets brought back to stop that happening; etc.