This is the third attempt to give you an answer. Why? Because the answer depends from so many things and trying to bring all pros and cons into one article is a bit of a challenge.
1.) How much experience do you have with 3D software in general?
2.) How fast do you want to achieve results?
3.) Hobby or business?
4.) Tough production speed?
5.) realistic looking results or game (asset) development?
so, probably you give us some hints what's your purpose in using Blender. Then it's perhaps easier to give an answer.
thank you. In the meantime I went ahead with 2.8 and agree with you that the limited info I gave did not help.
Reasonably experienced in 3D software, no time limit, hobby for now, realistic renders == 2.8
The basics learning on here is on 2.79 so I worked through a set on YouTube first and then back to here where it makes more sense. 2.8 is quite different so I would have found it tough to follow along. I would expect they will update their courses when time allows or maybe when 2.8 is out of beta
thanks again
For someone brand new to Blender the differences between 2.79 and 2.8 may confuse people at first, especially since 2.8 isn't a full release yet and things can change between new versions. That said I would still recommend going through the flows here. The concepts and everything you'd learn are still the same, the only hurdle you'd come across is trying to find those same tools and shortcuts within 2.8 but it shouldn't be too difficult.
I started with older versions of Blender but didn't start getting more serious about it until 2.8 came out and while I did struggle at times it gets easier the more you use it. You could also start off with our 2.8 content to help bridge that gap quicker. Here are a few I found:
https://cgcookie.com/course/production-design-in-eevee
https://cgcookie.com/course/creating-procedural-sand-dunes-with-blender-2-8
https://cgcookie.com/course/creating-mini-tanks-for-a-mobile-game
https://cgcookie.com/course/creating-animated-sci-fi-game-assets
The first two are fairly short and should be relatively easy to follow and will teach you different things between the two. The two after that are more in-depth and cover a project based workflow to create a specific asset. Even if you feel you're not experienced enough, you can watch them to get passive information from it. Sometimes just watching a tutorial or course can give you a good overview of how something would be created even if you don't fully understand everything being taught.