I'm not sure whether you meant to imply this or not, but one big difference between using my and our, is that our does not really create a closure.* You hint at this when you say our "allow[s] it to be set from outside the package," but I just thought it could use some explicit clarification.

* Update: actually, the snippet using our does create a closure, but the thing being closed on is not the variable itself. See this post by tilly for details.

Compare:

{
    our $foo;
    sub inc { ++$foo }
}

print inc for 1 .. 5;
our $foo;
print ++$foo;
[download]

To:

{
    my $foo;
    sub inc { ++$foo }
}

print inc for 1 .. 5;
my $foo;
print ++$foo;
[download]

The neat thing about closures is that they allow the variable to persist, while also protecting it from the outside. Using our does not.

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