mayest - 6:11 pm on Oct 15, 2007 (gmt 0)

While it is possible to upgrade from 1.0.x to 1.5, it's not something to be undertaken lightly and I wouldn't recommend a beginner try it. Go with 1.5 if you're just starting out.

I agree. I've been playing with version 1.0 in a virtual machine for a few days. I decided that I wanted to upgrade it to the 1.5 version, but after some research it looked to be a royal pain. It may not be too bad if you really know what you are doing, but for me it seemed easier to start again with 1.5 RC3. If I understand correctly, moving from RC3 to the release version should be pretty simple.

I bought a book yesterday ("Beginning Joomla! From Novice to Professional") and it covers version 1.5. I was able to follow the instructions to install it from scratch on my hosting account with no difficulties. It seems to be a great book, and I'm looking forward to trying to move my static html pages to Joomla.