As you may know, we are completely rewriting the Cookbook for Joomla! 1.6+. We now have decided not to release a stable version until Joomla! version 2.5 is available. (The version number 1.8 has changed to 2.5)

Some other important extensions have converted the existing 1.5 versions to run on Joomla! 1.6+. Mostly built on the old programcode with fixes for joomla. Probably because the Joomla! programming environment isn't yet stabilised.

Here our understanding of the development path.

This is a little confusing but let's start with the Joomla 3.x series.
3.0 will be the version with major changes and additions. 3.1/3.2/3.3/3.4 will be bug fixes and minor changes. 3.5 will be the long term supported stable version.

This is not completly true for the current 2.x series. You have to read versions 1.6/1.7/2.5 as the 2.x series!
1.6 included a lot of changes from 1.5
1.7 also included major changes to 1.6
2.5 will also include changes. How important at least we do not know. However this version will be a long term supported "stable" version as the above mentioned 3.5 version.

I hope this helps your understanding of the Joomla future.

To decide on upgrading a Joomla! 1.5 site this article may help.

Article on Joomla Magazine

Well kso77 even if you don't believe it. It's possible with unstable releases. In short you'll never find a stable program or IT system. You'll find bugs until the end of the physical lifetime.

But seriously, this is only supposted to be a hint to the Joomla development paths. If you want to use stable for a release with major changes it's up to you. I don't,

Yes, I missunderstood your sentence to beeing a comment on the text and not a question. I personally do not really like the word stable about a version but it is generally used as a version after testversions as alpha and beta.

Sorry, there is and will be no version available for J! 1.7 that you could use on a live site.

There will be some alpha and beta versions available before a final release but not for a live site. We have to know more about Joomla! 2.5 and the migration possibilities before setting any dates.

You should read my link to Joomla Magazine and other informations to find out if you should start with Joomla 1.7 or Joomla 1.5. If you choose to start with Joomla 1.5 you should check if your extensions will be available in a Joomla 2.5 native version and that you will be able to migrate the data. If you choose to start with Joomla 1.7 first check that the extensions you want to use are available and then the same chacks as with 1.5. In both cases you'll have to upgrade within less than a year if you want to use supported versions.

I would say. It's not a very easy decision.

Regards
over