Satan911; You are certainly right about some very talented people having done some great work on Qt & GTK. I didn't want to push any single toolkit over another but wanted to ensure that options were noted. However, I don't see the choice of learning Win32 API first as a bad one. I certainly don't think that it should stop there but there's nothing wrong with starting with it. As for the 'you should learn about it first' point; it's true that it's a very common point but I can't consider it entirely BS, though I think I understand where you're coming from.
Win32 API is used in lots & lots of software and especially in much of the underlying system software so learning it can provide a better understanding not only to what one currently wants to do but also in understanding better how the system itself operates and with that, what to expect with any software that you create for that system. I also have found, to my own experience, that it also helps with debugging, particularly when trying to work with things where you have no choice but to deal with the existing system. I feel that it provides a better general working set of information from which to begin building new knowledge.
Whilst that may seem vague, consider that when working with GTK or Qt, both of which provide their own canvas support for things like OpenGL & SDL and also provide some of their own methods for working with network connectivity, at some point you may still run into a problem that exists with how that toolkit deals with the system itself. During debugging, certain calls may be made to functions that are unfamiliar simply because they are not part of your toolkit but rather part of what your toolkit is working with. On the more hackerly side of things; if you want to create software that will try to read information from existing dialog boxes, perhaps password fields, that software is unlikely to be written in the same toolkit that you're using. Still, Win32 API isn't necessarily a better thing to learn first, and certainly not for everyone, but it's not a bad thing to learn at all. As well, if someone happens to already have other friends that are familiar with it, then there may be more motivation and support for learning it than other things that are not necessarily so well known.
Application development and, in a way, even system development offers more options to the learning programmer as they can learn new stuff and try to keep up with what's 'happening'. But for a hacker, if one should feel so inclined to follow such a path, it's pretty vitally important to know what already exists and what has become a 'standard'. Just because Boost exists does not mean that one should skip learning the STL.
On a side note: It's really good to speak to you again, even if we do differ in opinion sometimes.
