What are good alternatives to state variables, and how do they compare?

# Example of using alternatives to state variables in Perl
sub example_with_array {
    my @array = (1, 2, 3);

    for my $i (0 .. $#array) {
        print "Element at index $i: $array[$i]\n";
    }
}

sub example_with_package_variable {
    our $count = 0;

    sub increment_count {
        $count++;
        return $count;
    }
}

# Using the functions
example_with_array();
my $new_count = increment_count();
print "New count: $new_count\n";