When should I start using 4.3

I'd probably go ahead and use 4.3, and plan to on the project I'm about to begin. I'd rather not rely on using the legacy provider or have to port my code over later.

There may be several changes before it's released, but I don't see any of them being too drastic. As long as you write some decent tests, you should be in good hands.

It's probably going to be called 5.0 btw !

A side project to make sure packages we use work ok with the new version should be the best thing to start with

If you are new to Laravel, just start with the stable version. 4.3 isn't released until (late) november and will probably change a lot before that. A lot of packages aren't fully tested/ready for L4.3 and you will probably run into errors you can't find answers for.

It is good to test L4.3 of see where it's going (and if it's going to break anything, so you can report it before being stable), but for now just stick with L4.2 and follow the upgrade guide. It probably won't take you over an hour or so.

Nothing wrong with 4.2.x :)

@bashy But the new Filesystem in 4.3 is awesome :)

Yeah sure, but nothing you can't do without just using Flysytem standalone ;) But if you rely heavily on cloud-based storage you could just try 4.3, but I would only do it if you really need something from L4.3. (Or if you are an experienced Laravel user and follow the new commits etc. regularly)

@Barryvdh Do you have source for the approximate release date (late November)?

@codeclown The laravel release schedule closely matches symfony releases.

See:

L4 Release scheduled (old tweet from 1st laracon)

Symfony 2.6 release date

Yes it needs a stable Symfony release, so Laravel 4.3 will probably be tagged a few days after symfony 2.6

Alright, thanks guys. So I think I'll still roll with the old version.