I'm a high school mathematics teacher and a long-time casual programmer. For the last dozen years I've been using an Atari system that was event-driven, desktop based, document-associated, etc., so I'm familiar with the idea of the windows API. Over the years I became (IMHO) proficient in C programming, as well as assembly language for the Motorola 68000. (A wonderful 32-bit chip, I amazed how goofy x86 assembly seems to be. Who needs segments?) For the Atari system I wrote a number of apps, including a full(!) featured spreadsheet, a mathematic graphics program, picture viewer/format converter, paint program, etc. All freeware, no commercial programming.
  I've just entered the win32 arena, but have the docs, some books, some time, and hope to be an expert at some point!