I would like to use my Raspberry Pi for some programming. (never done it before, I want to get into Python.) If I can transfer my programs yo my Windows 8.1 computer and run them there also, that would be perfect. Can I do that? Thanks!
Short answer: mostly yes, but it depends.
Obviously, the Raspberry Pi specific libraries for controlling its peripherals won't work on ms-windows.
Your Pi is probably running a Linux distribution that has package management and comes with a functioning toolchain. That means that installing (python) packages and libraries will be a breeze. Tools like pip and setup.py scripts will mostly Just Work.
That is not necessarily the case on ms-windows.
Installing python libraries that contain extensions (compiled code) or require external shared libraries is a frustrating epxerience for technical reasons pertaining to the microsoft toolchain. On that OS it is generally easier to use a python distribution like Anaconda that has its own package manager, and comes with packages for most popular libraries.
Furthermore, if you look into the documentation for Python's standard library you will see that sometimes a function is only available on UNIX or only on ms-windows. And due to the nature of how ms-windows creates new processes, there are some  gotchas when you are using the multiprocessing module.
It would be a good idea to use the same Python version on both platforms. Currently that would be preferably 3.6 or 3.5.
Will Python programs created on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian work on a Windows 8.1 machine?