I want to start off by saying that it is based upon my own experiences and professional opinion, and that's not something that you might have to agree with. But within the real-world, most companies and organizations aren't usually that eager to migrate to the newest versions of any framework (or libraries). In this very case, that would be React 18. While I'm also aware that many of the code examples in the various books I'm studying/researching are following the v17 standards, the default React version when running npx create-react-app is already v18.2 at this very moment.
It is my personal choice and decision to still follow the v17 standards and design patterns for now because I believe strongly that if/when I find work related to applying my React skills, there's a much better chance of me needing to use v17 or v16.8 for most existing/on-going web projects. I will eventually go into learning/reseaching about React v18 (perhaps some time into 2024), but that'll be just for my own interests to know more about what the latest version of React has to offer.
My take?
- For production use (and active deployments):
v16.8andv17. - For experimentations & learning:
v18.