How to choose a version of ButterKnife for the Android Support library (and why such a mess)?

Question

Android

My project has the following dependencies:

implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:26.1.0'
implementation 'com.android.support:design:26.1.0'

And such a butterfly:

implementation 'com.jakewharton:butterknife:8.8.1'
annotationProcessor 'com.jakewharton:butterknife-compiler:8.8.1'

Everything works great.
And now I take it - and for the sake of excrement I update the butterknife to version 10.2.1, which the author kindly shoves us here, without giving any explanation that another version may be required:
https://github.com/JakeWharton/butterknife# download
And - posyyyypalos!

Error:(246, 5) error: resource android:attr/fontVariationSettings not found.
Error:(246, 5) error: resource android:attr/ttcIndex not found.
Error:failed linking references.

Etc.
It turns out that the version of butterknife should be selected for the support library?
How exactly?
I suggested that you need to go to maven and look at which support library the butterfly of this version is tied to, and dance from that. Okay, I open com.jakewharton:butterknife:8.8.1:
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.jakewharton...
However, the dependencies are support library 25.3.0, not 26.1.0 at all!
I looked at a few more projects on github and saw that this correspondence from maven is not respected anywhere!
What then is observed? How to understand which version of a butterfly is needed?
I hate everything, why is there such a mess everywhere?

Answer 1

Well, you yourself described one of the ways. Open maven central and select.
Recommended path - everything should be the latest versions.

Answer 2

What is mess for one is order for another.
If you want everything to be clear, strict and as convenient for you - hire programmers, they will write everything for you as you say, for a certain $$$ per hour.