<p>I found that SQL stored procedures are very interesting and useful. I have written stored procedures but i want to write well crafted, good performance tuned and concise SPs for any sort of requirement and also would love to learn about any tricks or good practices for stored procedures. How do i move from the beginner to the advanced stage in writing stored procedures?</p>

<p><em>Update: Found from comments that my question should be more specific.
Everyone has some tricks upon their sleeves and I was expecting such tricks and practices for SPs which they use in their code which differentiates them from others and more importantly spruce up the productivity in writing and working with stored procedures.</em></p>

The only trick I always try to use is: Always include an example usage in a comment near the top.  This is also useful for testing your SP.  I like to include the most common examples - then you don't even need SQL Prompt or a separate .sql file with your favorite invocation, since it's stored right there in the server (this is expecially useful if you have stored procs that look at sp_who output for blocks or whatever and take a bunch of parameters).
Something like:
```
```
/*
    Usage:
    EXEC usp_ThisProc @Param1 = 1, @Param2 = 2
*/
```
```
Then to test or run the SP, you simply highlight that section in your script and execute.