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Questions? Answered!

Here are some answers to your frequently asked questions. If you have a question that's not listed here, send it to us and we'll try our best to answer them for you.

General

What's Raccoon?
Raccoon is a little framework for creating server-side applications in Javascript. It runs on v8cgi and is built on top of MooTools
Why Server-Side Javascript?
Why not? Javascript has proven itself to be powerful and expressive language. We already use it for creating great frontends for our applications, so why not go further?
Why v8cgi?
We decided to make Raccoon run on top of v8cgi because of two things: first, the v8 javascript engine which v8cgi interfaces with is one of the fastest and most powerful javascript engines around, and secondly because of v8cgi's simplicity.
Why MooTools?
We'll be honest: we are big MooTools fans. In fact, Raccoon was actually a byproduct of a MooTools related project we are working on. But most of all, MooTools is an awesome javascript framework, adding powerful features to the language that make development easier and better.
Who's Behind Raccoon?
Team Raccoon is composed of Mark Obcena (@keeto, Keetology) and Jabis Sevon (@jabis, Pumppumedia).
License? Copyrights?
Like MooTools, Raccoon is released under the liberal MIT License. To put it simply, you can use the framework and the libraries in any way you want, as long as you retain the copyright headers, distribute the license together with the code, and never claim it as your own work. And... you have to promise not to sue us if anything goes wrong.

The Raccoon logo and the official documentation are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, version 3.0. Raccoon, the Raccoon Logo, the official documentation and other marks are copyrighted 2009 to Mark Obcena.

The Framework

What exactly do you mean by "little framework?"
Unlike other frameworks, Raccoon was "discovered" rather than created: we built applications, we saw patterns, we extracted the framework. We want the framework to remain lean, containing only the bare-essentials for developing applications. Think of it as in the middle of micro-frameworks like Camping, Sinatra or NiceDog and kitchen-sink frameworks like Rails, Django and CakePHP.
So what's included?
The basics: routing, controllers, a basic template engine, cache management and some helpers. There's also basic adapters for CouchDB, MySQL and SQLite
Wow, you weren't kidding when you said "lean."
Of course not.
But there's a way for me to extend it, right?
Yes! Glad you asked that! Because it is built on top of MooTools, Raccoon is inherently extensible. Most of the components that make up Raccoon are written as MooTools classes, so you can extend, modify and implement new methods and features. And you can do this without touching the core library!
Nice! I'm wondering though, is Raccoon right for me?
Unless you try it, you'll never know. But there are a few caveats though: Raccoon is a young project so we expect that you know what you're doing and that you'll be able to keep up with the changes in the library. Also, because of it's simple nature, you also have to be comfortable with implementing things yourself. In the future, we'll collect various Raccoon plugins so we can all share code and sing kumbaya.

Web Server and v8cgi Related

What do I need to run Raccoon?
You'll need to have a web-server with v8cgi installed. You'll also need to have mod_rewrite enabled for routing.
What version of v8cgi do I use?
We recommend either the trunk version or version 0.6 and above. Raccoon will not work without modification for v8cgi 0.5.

MooTools Related

I don't like MooTools. Can I use framework X instead?
Tough. No.
Okay, can you at least build something that would work with framework X?
No.
How much of MooTools do I need to learn to use Raccoon?
Surprisingly enough, only a minimal amount. If you know how to work with MooTools classes, then you're already a pro at Raccoon.
Okay, so I'm ambivalent towards MooTools, but I want to use framework X for my frontend—you won't force me to use MooTools, right?
Right. There's a separation between the backend of your application and the frontend. While Raccoon takes care of the backend for your application, the frontend is left for you to work with. You can use any javascript framework for your views.
Sigh. I suppose I could learn MooTools.
Good for you.