Learn how to build Shopify apps with “Shopify Application Development”, a book technically reviewed by Yours Truly

Michael Larkin has been helping people build online shops with Shopify for years in all sorts of ways. He’s helped people set up shops, he’s taken stock Shopify stores and hot-rodded them with all sorts of customizations, and he co-authored one of the first Shopify apps, FetchApp, which makes it possible to sell downloadable digital goods with Shopify. He recently wrote Packt Publishing’s Shopify Application Development, a quick read that’ll walk you through the process of building Shopify apps with Ruby on Rails, following good practices like test-driven design while you’re doing it. Among the things you’ll do by following the book’s exercises are:

• Learn how to configure your Rails development environment for building Shopify apps, testing them with RSpec and FactoryGirl, and deploying them to Heroku
• Connect an app to Shopify, and work with Shopify’s API and Webhooks
• Build both private apps for use by a single store, and public apps, which any number of stores can use
• Publish your app to the Shopify store so that you can sell it to vendors and make some money for your efforts

It has a number of technical reviewers, including one you might have heard of:

The book’s a mere 109 pages and should be a good starting-off point for your Shopify app development. You can order the ebook version directly from Packt for under $20; the paper book version (which comes with the ebook for free is about $30. It’s also available on Amazon, with the Kindle version priced at just under $10, and the paper book version under $30.