title: Is "SET NOCOUNT ON" a good choice for a placeholder stored procedure body?
body: <p>These answers (<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/27970943/12484">1</a>, <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/2885664/12484">2</a>), using code from <a href="https://dattatreysindol.com/2012/05/29/tips-n-tricks-t-sql-an-elegant-way-to-create-or-alter-stored-procedures-in-one-go-for-easy-maintenance/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this article</a>, recommend using the statement <code>SET NOCOUNT ON</code> as a temporary placeholder/dummy body for a stored procedure whose body will be overwritten shortly.</p>
  
  <p>Neither those answers nor that article specify <em>why</em> <code>SET NOCOUNT ON</code> was chosen as the value for the temporary stored procedure body.</p>
  
  <p>My question: Why is <code>SET NOCOUNT ON</code> a good choice for a temporary stored procedure body which will (if all goes well) be overwritten in a subsequent operation?  Is there a better alternative?</p>
  
  <p>Some criteria that come to mind for what might constitute a good temporary / placeholder stored procedure body:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Fails in an obvious way at runtime if for some reason the subsequent <code>ALTER</code> of the stored procedure doesn't happen as planned;</li>
  <li>Is easy to understand by future developers maintaining the stored procedure;</li>
  <li>Doesn't add any significant overhead.</li>
  </ul>