This is a question for developers using React/Redux. Even though I guess I understand the basics of writing automated tests for React and Redux, it seems to me that writing them takes a significant amount of time and it may actually make more sense to just refresh the browser and visually inspect the result of what we're doing, because that is our end product. So I'm wondering if other developers find it worthwhile to write automated tests and what are the reasons for doing so.
Just use TypeScript instead of JavaScript and tests will be much less relevant.
Once upon a time, I am a big advocate of TDD. After I came to Redux/React world, I found that unit testing is basically useless in declarative programming style.
Jarrod Marshall
Sr. Application Architect/Consultant
Currently we have about 80% test coverage in fairly large (and growing) react/redux application. The major benefit for us is when we refactor or integrate new code. Our build process lints and runs our unit tests so that we know if some change broke code that was written months ago.
If your project is small, doesn't change often or doesn't have a team working on then I can see how it would be tough to see the benefit but it exists.
Tests are a great way to document the behavior of code. If you bring on a new team member who wonders how the application functions it's pretty easy to discern that from the tests.