Hi,

I'm new to InkScape and am excited about becoming familiar with the code. There are some specific things in which I'm interested, but would also like to learn a bit about the general layout of InkScape architecture. I'm particularly interested how objects are "picked" or "selected" and scaled, moved, skewed, etc. And how many objects on a page get stored into a collection (array, etc.).

Here's my situation. I've been programming as a hobby for about 7 years, using ColdFusion, VB, C#, ASP.NET, etc. I messed around with C++(got about a third of the way through Stroustrup's book) and am still foggy on pointers. I'm most comfortable with C# and SilverLight. My ultimate goal is to create a small idiot proof light-weight on-line vector editing program.

If there are any words of advice on where to begin looking at the source code of InkScape, it would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the forum, beantiks!

The Inkscape wiki will be a good start. I'm afraid I'll have to leave it to you to find the exact page there. But there's a page about how to become involved in Inkscape in many ways, including coding. And I know we can always use more coders! And if I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure you can get the source code there.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Inkscape

Also, you might find more info on the main page of the bug tracker at Launchpad.
https://launchpad.net/inkscape

the current source is in launchpad, http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... ith_Bazaar will help you get started with bzr and check a copy out to your machine.
http://inkscape.modevia.com/doxygen/html/ is the online doxygen documentation, which can be useful.

if your interested in the selection stuff, try the various files in the src directory whose names start with selection, select-context is the UI for the select tool, the others are various background functions.