Hi James,
Possible Topics to Include in the Survey
API Endpoint & Parameter Consistency
Introduce common, generic naming conventions for all API endpoints, commands,
request parameters, and response fields to improve clarity and reduce ambiguity.
Date & Time Handling
Standardize date/time representation across all APIs. Options include:
Return all dates and datetimes as ISO 8601-formatted strings (date, dateTime,
offsetDateTime).
Alternatively, use the system’s provided date format.
Avoid mixed representations (arrays, strings, etc.) for the same type of data.
Strict DTO-based Request/Response Models
Remove incoming and outgoing raw string JSON handling.
Map all requests and responses to DTOs with clear field-level validations for
incoming data.
Exception Handling & HTTP Status Codes
Enforce consistent status codes across the platform:
400 - Request syntax or field validation errors.
403 - Domain/business rule violations.
500 - Generic server errors.
Standardize the error response structure for easy client-side handling.
Common Response Structure for Write Operations
Example unified structure:
json
CopyEdit
{
"resources": [
{
"resourceId": "1",
"resourceExternalId": "87c83044-825a-48c8-989b-bbf47d43caec",
"resourceEntity": "LOAN",
"resourceClassification": "REPAYMENT"
}
],
"changes": {
"key": "value"
}
}
Alternative Approach
Move away from a common, generic response format and allow each API to define
its own dedicated response object tailored to its functionality.
Modularization & Dependency Hygiene
Finish modularization and remove circular/unnecessary dependencies between
modules.
Define clear, stable module boundaries (public API vs. internal).
Security & SQL Safety
Avoid native SQL; use JPQL/Criteria/repositories by default.
If native is needed, require prepared statements—no string concatenation.
My opening thoughts on Fineract 2.0.
Regards,
Adam
> On 2025. May 12., at 22:53, James Dailey <jdai...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> Community -
>
> It is probably past time to have a discussion about the future of Fineract
> and what we want to see going forward.
>
> I would like to get your ideas for a Survey of users and developers.
>
> In that survey, which we would push to as many users and developers of
> Fineract as possible, we would ask things about developer experience, user
> interfaces, API documentation, connecting to payments, enabling connections
> to third party systems, security, code quality, and in general a number of
> topics that relate to the roadmap ideas that have surfaced in the past two
> years.
>
> I will also include a few of the previously asked questions from our
> community surveys in 2019, 2021, and 2022 so that we can have a time series,
> e.g. around questions of "how did you learn about the project?" and "how are
> you using it?"
>
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Survey+Results+2022+November
>
>
> Please respond here with questions and topics to cover. If there is no
> objection I will formulate the questions and send out the survey using Google
> Survey by the end of next week with responses due by June 4th. I'll ask for
> the community to promote the survey as much as possible to relevant people.
>
> Thanks,
