Why Is Shopify So Confusing for Developers?

Working on the Shopify integration for InvenTrac and I have to rant a little.

Why is everything so confusing?

There’s Shopify Admin. Then Partner Dashboard. Then Dev Dashboard. Then Apps. Then a bunch of different Shopify URLs and subdomains.

Half the time I know exactly what I need to change, I just can’t remember where the hell I changed it last time.

API settings? One place.

App settings? Somewhere else.

Store settings? Different place.

App review? Go find another dashboard.

And somehow they all look like they’re part of Shopify, but don’t really feel connected.

Maybe if you’ve been developing Shopify apps for years this all makes perfect sense. But coming into it fresh, the experience is just… confusing.

I spent way too much time today clicking around trying to find a setting I know I’ve seen before.

Building the actual integration might be easier than figuring out where Shopify put everything.

Rant over. Back to InvenTrac.