80038 tells the software which post to fetch for you, but it doesn't mean anything to humans. is-there-any-point-to-the-part-questions-url-after-the-number tells people something about the contents of the page, which makes the internet nicer because you can get an impression of the page before you click it. Doing it this way might also have a mild SEO benefit (though you can never truly know about that).
I do still shorten my links, since it looks nicer and I can fill in the context using words.
