[PD] question regarding symboltable

[hans w. koch]

i seem to recall, that using [makefilename] a lot (i.e. in the range of 1e+08) will flood the symboltable and at best slow down pd, at worst crash it.
on the pd list i found a thread about that from 2002 with miller saying:
In general, it's a bad idea in Pd to write externs which create indeterminate numbers of symbols at run time. 
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2002-09/007966.html

has this changed somehow since or should it still be avoided?
or is there a way to “flush” the symboltable at runtime?

i am asking in the context of pd double, exploring strategies for storing big numbers. 
so far the most reliable one involves [makefilename %.0f] and fromsymbol as discussed in this thread recently (https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2020-09/128113.html).
but if that creates a problem with symboltable, i´d try other options (e.g. splitting them up into parts).

thanks for confirming or appeasing my fears

hans