At the moment the documentation for JSONata does not say when functions got added/changed. As a result, when attempting to write syntax on (older) versions, I have to look up on the releases page when this functionality got added, or if it is even released already (see $type for a post 1.7.0 addition that is on the live docs already: http://docs.jsonata.org/object-functions#type)
Another option could be to have separate documentation for each major version, with the information matching the specific version. Still, it would be good to have information on when specific aspects got changed, for example the $reduce function for 1.7.0.