Introducing the Xcode service

One of the most exciting developments in OS X server in quite a long time is the new Xcode service available in OS X server. To get started, we need to understand what the Xcode service is and what it isn't. You need to understand that it's not just a place to store your code. For server administrators, it's very easy for us to get used to the idea that a server is a place from which you serve stuff. But we also have to understand that servers are also very useful things to perform tasks for us in a background, and that is more what Xcode service does.

It is your testing buddy on the network. It's like a whole new employee that you've added to your team for little to no cost. In fact, whenever the guys on the Xcode team talk about this, they talk about the idea that you could just grab any machine that supports OS X's servers base configuration, and just run OS X server on it, turn on this service. And you instantly start to see the benefits of code testing and real-time integration. So that brings up another good point. This is all about a place to do integrations, a place to send your code commits for testing.

And it's automatic. Once you get this thing started and you set your bots to run automatically, everything should be working great in the background for you. So you don't have to worry about testing and analysis. If there are problems with your code, as you find those problems, they'll be put up in a visual way for everybody to see, and it's easy to march back and figure out where those problems came from. It's also a single place where you can attach all of your provisioned iOS devices so that those devices can be used in real world testing. The server will take those provisioned devices and test your code directly on the device, rather than doing it in a simulator.

It's a great way to visually monitor your app development. You can put up a plasma TV in a main area for everybody to see, and your coders as well as your product manager, or other people maybe in sales, can all keep track of what's going on with the development of the product. This whole thing is designed to make sure that your product is always in a shippable state, so that your product is always in the best possible condition to go into your customer's hands. Ultimately, this is about creating great code.

So, let's get into the server app and show you how to set this thing up. It's super easy.