[Rails] Learning some best DB practices

I am completely new to rails, and I have a very useful way of dealing
with database structures from my background in php.  I don't want to
be one of those who brings bad habits into rails...so I am curious if
my practices below violate rails' best practices.

(SQL is below, but I try to explain here for clarity)  For example,
let's say I want a user's table in the database.  I will usually
create it with only necessary information.  Name, username, password,
timestamps, etc.  Then I set up a "users_profiles" table that is
essentially a table with only three columns (1. A reference to the
user_id, 2. A 'key' column (varchar), and 3. A 'value' column
(text).).  The primary key is a combo of the referenced user_id and
the 'key' column.  Within my "user" model, I would instantiate an new
"users_profile", by calling $this->profile = new Users_Profiles().
Then, if I want to set an email, all I have to do is call $this->user-
>profile->email = "example email".  Then $this->user->save();.  This
technique, allowed for extreme flexibility.  Note that any call just
to $this->user->name would have to match the database table column
name, but with the key/value setup in the "users_profiles" table
(using a few setters and getters) I am able to set the "key" to email
without any change to the database.

I appreciated this flexibility and decreased need to alter the
database.  Since I see huge advantage in the "Rails
Way"...particularly in ActiveRecord, I would like to adhere to "best-
practices."  Does anyone know if this would be considered a poor way
of managing data in the "rails way".  It seems to me that it would
function similarly, in that it would save a lot of updates with the db-
migrations.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Andrew Pace


Here are the actual SQL statements for a real site.
--------------------------------------------------
create table users (
        user_id                 serial                  not null,
        username                varchar(255)    not null,
        password                varchar(40)     not null,
        user_type               varchar(20)     not null,
        ts_created              datetime                not null,
        ts_last_login   datetime,
        primary key     (user_id),
        unique                  (username)
        )
        type=InnoDB;


create table users_profile (
        user_id                 bigint unsigned not null,
        profile_key             varchar(255)    not null,
        profile_value   text                    not null,
        primary key (user_id, profile_key),
        foreign key (user_id) references users (user_id)
        )
        type=InnoDB;

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