[TYPO3-community] user profile extension

[Chris Fortune]

Hello,

I'm new to Typo3.  I have a short beginner project, to alter user types so 
that a user may have many many attributes in her profile.  Think of 
match.com, where a user can have hundreds of attributes describing many 
aspects of her character.  Obviously it doesn't make sense to add columns in 
the sql user table, because this would become a performance burden, and 
also, each user attribute may have data flags associated with it. 
Therefore, it makes sense to add two tables, one named `attributes`, and 
another for the lookup table (named `users_attributes`), containing id's for 
both user and attribute, as well as any data flags pertaining to that 
attribute for that user.

My question is, how would you proceed to create this extension?  Is there 
already one that has this capability?  I couldn't find it yet.  Would it be 
better to extend an existing extension (which one?), add a new feature to an 
existing extension, or create a custom user_ extension?

Your help is appreciated,

-Phenetic