I'm serious, it's not that hard to do SharePoint 2003 web parts, really! Just do the following and if you follow the steps you'll have done your first Web Part for v2 and be confident you can do more.

1. Install Visual Studio.NET and the Web Part Templates. Do your coding in C# it's not hard and it sounds cool and you'll be paid more.

2. Read James Edelen's articles on MSD2D.com. Look in the web parts section of Tips. They are excellent, on just getting your feet wet creating a new project, putting in some code, building your web part and getting it installed via a CAB file onto the SharePoint Server. Thank you so much for writing these James!

3. Have a look at these online seminars on MSDN. They'll get you using the SharePoint OM to do the old favourite 'hello world' but also useful stuff.

4. You are now ready for the SharePoint OM (Object Model) in the SDK. Start somewhere like returning lists of subwebs and listing and copying files. This really has a lot of useful examples to get you writing real world useful web parts.

5. A final note, keep in mind if you install the technical refresh of WSS after you have developed some web parts, you'll need to make some changes to your code, check Adam Macaulay's tip on MSD2D.com for pointers. And another thing I've found: you need Windows 2003 server RTM for the WSS refresh, but I didn't need it for the SPS refresh which refreshes WSS anyway! Go figure.