laravel has been a doing big leaps... from 3 - 4 was a big change, then 4 - 5 is another big change. It's like every new major change is a new paradigm.

Unless 5 is a strict requirement I would recommend with 4.2. I just find that any new technology takes a few months at least to mature, the documentation, resources (videos, tutorials, forum threads anything else), gotchas to be available.

Relearning - well, as a programmer - that is an occupational hazard (or opportunity, depending on how you look at it I suppose).

I am having the same issue, I work on CodeIgniter and waiting till Laravel 5 become stable to jump.

I've got a project that will take sometime to finish, was expecting it to be the perfect timing if I can do that in laravel 5.

4.2 and 5 has a lot of changes I guess, every time I composer update, it breaks my code ;-( Now I am reverting everything back to CodeIgniter. Maybe I am not ready for Laravel yet.

I'm familiar with git and composer is a really nice thing!
As for OO programming - I know Java & C++. OO principles & design patterns are not a problem for me. I know that the programming = learning, but I wonder if it's worth to learn the things the 4.2 way and then switch to 5.

@mikerogne - that's a good sign for me that you're using it for a client.

Thanks a lot for all the insight.