I agree with your scenario, but I wouldn't consider someone who consistently under-delivers a "rock star."
This is why defining terms is important. For me, a rockstar is a developer who is just further along, who likes to program in their own time, who reads Hacker News, and builds projects on the weekends.
Within 5 years, that person will be much further ahead than the rest and will spot pitfalls, security, and performance issues simply because they have encountered them before. However, sharing that information could lead to that person being called a "rockstar" and problematic, hampering "progress".
There is a big difference between acting as if you know something and actually knowing it. You're describing one thing, while the comment you are replying to is describing something else.
Let's consider a developer who is interested in programming and has a lot of experience. If the team is going down a path that the developer knows will lead to issues, or if the developer tries to help because the team is not as strict and it's leading to outages, that developer may be perceived negatively.
However, the developer is able to find security issues and potential bugs during code review, objectively providing significant value to the team.
This developer could be labeled as having a "rock star" attitude, while in reality, they are trying their best to ensure there are no security, performance, or outage issues.
It seems you are misunderstanding me again, If someone puts something on resume. It's a signalling they think it's important. And in order asses candidates on their strengths, we use the resume.
If you are worried that they are missing the information from the course, I gave how it's actually great tool to asses candidate.
You also thinking that can outsource in some sense if developer will workout at the work place you are hiring for. This is a mistake.
Instead of making blanket statements, and dismissing people on frivolous things. Like going to ivy league universities or having certificate.
It's better to test the person, to get the know more about the strengths and weaknesses.
A resume is just window into the candidate thinking process.
-edit
It's clear from your comments you're not aware of the great work at Harvard with CS50 course.
Well the context is online courses from Harvard, MIT. Such as the CS50 course referenced by many even in this thread.
Those courses are free, there is a option for a certification for around 150 dollar.
People actually learn the basics of CS and foundational knowledge in those courses.
And how to use git and GitHub.
I never stated that those certs, or courses alone would be enough.
This comment thread started because someone called it anti-signal.
Listing anything on a Resume is never pointless, it tells us something about the potential hire.
Courses like the one mentioned are open, which means if you wanted to test that knowledge you could, easily.
That could tell you so much about the potential hire:
* Did they actually do the course.
* Did they retain the information.
* Did they understood the material.
* How did they use the information, in their own projects or clients.
From those answers you would even be able to learn more about their seniority level.
The point is, "anti-signals" is just not everywhere the case. It might be for some, sure. But how many of those would like to see formal CS education?
Seems that even you are more on the side of actual code examples. And in order to create great code, allot of deep knowledge is needed. Which those courses provide.
People within companies are all different, so we can't say.
Some hiring managers might, others actually prefer no degree, others might focus more "shipped".
It depends