Use ASP.NET Profile or not?

Question

I need to store a few attributes of an authenticated user (I am using Membership API) and I need to make a choice between using Profiles or adding a new table with UserId as the PK. It appears that using Profiles is quick and needs less work upfront. However, I see the following downsides:

1. The profile values are squished into a single ntext column. At some point in the future, I will have SQL scripts that may update user's attributes. Querying a ntext column and trying to update a value sounds a little buggy to me.
2. If I choose to add a new user specific property and would like to assign a default for all the existing users, would it be possible?

My first impression has been that using profiles may cause maintainance headaches in the long run. Thoughts?

Answer 1

There was an article on MSDN (now on ASP.NET http://www.asp.net/downloads/sandbox/table-profile-provider-samples) that discusses how to make a Profile Table Provider. The idea is to store the Profile data in a table versus a row, making it easier to query with just SQL.

More onto that point, SQL Server 2005/2008 provides support for getting data via services and CLR code. You could conceivably access the Profile data via the API instead of the underlying tables directly.

As to point #2, you can set defaults to properties, and while this will not update other profiles immediately, the profile would be updated when next it is accessed.