That is the question. Is it time to be using Laravel 5?

The beta is really close. Start toying around.

Also, the HTML package is still there: https://packagist.org/packages/illuminate/html

@JohnRivs - I look forward to it - About the Html package, I mean, we need to require it using composer, and I really don't know why, knowing that Html is part of Illuminate just like many other packages used by Laravel.

I started a similar thread yesterday, https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/laravel-input-html-form and I have decided I'm going to use L5 for a new project I recently got, to use a learning curve and also get familiar with L5, so go ahead and start toying around with it's really cool.

I also refreshed on this series - https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-5-from-scratch which explains about form model binding, html helper the illuminate/html package etc which was one of a couple of questions I asked this forum yesterday.

Is it really that hard to add a line to composer.json?....

With Laravel being used a lot for just the API, Angular and all these kinds of front-end frameworks, I can understand Taylor removing the package from the core.

@JohnRivs - It's not, that is the thing, I was just wondering why they removed, but you said, there are Angular and others front-end frameworks.

@lstables - I'm going to start this series and read your thread.

It seems that the latest L5 Dev version is already different from the version in the videos for the Latest L5 from scratch series. For instance, there is no "views" folder anymore, but a "templates" folder under resources. I also see no Bootstrap code? Is this going to change yet again? Are the videos going to have to be redone again?

resources > views is there!

Not in mine.... weird

I pulled a fresh composer install yesterday and it's there. very weird

@JeffreyWay - Is starting a new series around Laravel 5, probably it's going to cover the 'right' way now. It's also available courses around Laravel 4.3, even though there's no Laravel 4.3 anymore.

I would imagine that you're pretty safe to start using Laravel 5. I am sure there are still changes being made, but I would gamble that most of the core is pretty solid at this point. Else Taylor wouldn't have "announced" a release date of this month and Jeffrey probably wouldn't be making a new Laravel 5 series (the first series was actually intended to cover Laravel 4.3).

@textbookcharlie there is a new serie.

I personally would make a production project yet as I too get weird structure issues with each download and or update. I really appreciate that L5 has some first party packages versus all in one. This allows for a slimmed line approach. I always use the same composer master file with the packages I always use. This speeds things up.

taylor changed a lot, and a lot of these changes were taken back again (for example the views folder being named templates an then views again, the routes file gone completely for route annotations, which now don't even work anymore, the routes.php is back etc.)

so there were a lot of changes. What I hate about L5 at the moment is the integration of bootstrap and less. Gulp was okay for me, but having to cut out this 500Gb Bootstrap stuff is a pain in the ...fingers... everytime i merge again with the latest commit. I hope that taylor drops bootstrap again and I seriously hope for a final release soon. I was at your point of the question in october, the recommendation in the forums here at that time were to go for L5. That getting started series was just out and I went ahead. Well. I wouldn't do it again as I had to suffer a lot within this time. So.. if you plan to release your app soon, you still might work on 4.2. As most of the biggest changes from 4.2 to 5.0 are already gone again, the upgrade shouldn't be that much of a problem later on.

Very excited to hear when the beta finally touches down. I've got a new project coming up and would really love to start it on L5 beta!

@danielwinter

I know your exaggerating about the 500gb (lol), but I was testing some things in a fresh L5 install and bootstrap wasn't a part of the install. Bootstrap was pulled in the app.blade.php file by CDN. I didn't look for any bootstrap files, but all so didn't notice them.

@jekinney bootstrap is indeed included not just CDN'd.

I think the reasoning behind this is because of the example "mini app" they include now with Laravel. This way they can showcase elixir pre processing and the auth functionality.

I wish they just removed that "mini app" and left us with a cleaner Laravel install like they used to do. It just takes 5mins to read the docs and understand how Auth, Elixir and most components work.

Personally, I am waiting for an official release before I start using Laravel 5. In the meantime, I've been steady watching/reading/absorbing everything I can regarding Laravel 5, but that's it.

Sorry for stealing the thread, but does anyone know if there's an official changelog so I can check all of the changes between 4.2 and 5 before I can move on to Laravel 5?

They removed the fresh command, in the meanwhile we need to wait until it's back (or not) (unfortunately).

@Ruffles There's no changelog, you can see changes here

https://github.com/laravel/laravel/commits/develop

@Ruffles - You can see here:

GitHub - You can switch between the branches (develop is 5.0 in the mean time, while it's not released).

Docs - Releases - The documentation, you can see the releases (along with the changelog)

Docs - Upgrade - And here you can see how to upgrade from 4.2 to 5.0

@yayuj or any other of you guys, have you tried to upgrade from 4.2 to 5 for an existing project? and is that safe? regarding to upgrade documents.

@maytham Why updating now? wait until L5 is released and you'll see loads of tutorials on how to upgrade.

I haven't, but I recommend you to install L5 and start sending your files to their respective folders, testing and debugging as well, if something happen you can fix quickly, verify the version of the dependencies you are using and update, update your code as well if needed, if the API changed. After that, you see that everything is working, go back to your code and start refactoring in order to improve your code to work better in the new technologies that L5 has.

@yayuj @RachidLaasri OK, thanks for the answers :)