Question: Is there any way to translate this Java code into Python?

```
class Foo
{
    final static private List<Thingy> thingies = 
       ImmutableList.of(thing1, thing2, thing3);
}

```

e.g. `thingies` is an immutable private list of `Thingy` objects that belongs to the `Foo` class rather than its instance.

I know how to define static class variables from this question [Static class variables in Python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68645/static-class-variables-in-python) but I don't know how to make them immutable and private.

Answer: 
You can make it un-writeable (subtly different from immutable) by using properties, but there is no way to make it private -- that goes against Python's philosophy.

```
class Foo(object):    # don't need 'object' in Python 3
    @property
    def thingies(self):
        return 'thing1', 'thing2', 'thing3'

f = Foo()
print f.thingies
#('thing1', 'thing2', 'thing3')
f.thingies = 9
#Traceback (most recent call last):
#  File "test.py", line 8, in <module>
#    f.thingies = 9
#AttributeError: can't set attribute

```

Whether it's immutable or not depends on what you return; if you return a mutable object you may be able to mutate that *and* have those changes show up in the instance/class.

```
class FooMutable(object):
    _thingies = [1, 2, 3]
    @property
    def thingies(self):
        return self._thingies

foo = FooMutable()
foo.thingies.append(4)
print foo.thingies
# [1, 2, 3, 4]

```

This will let you mutate `thingies`, and because the object returned is the same object kept in the instance/class the changes will be reflected on subsequent access.

Compare that with:

```
class FooMutable(object):
    @property
    def thingies(self):
        return [1, 2, 3]

foo = FooMutable()
foo.thingies.append(4)
print foo.thingies
# [1, 2, 3]

```

Because a brand new list is returned each time, changes to it are not reflected in subsequent accesses.
You want to look into the `property()` function. It allows you to define your own custom Getter and Setter for a member attribute of a class. It might look something like this:

```
class myClass(object):
  _x = "Hard Coded Value"

  def set_x(self, val): return

  def get_x(self): return self._x

  def del_x(self): return

  x = property(get_x, set_x, del_x, "I'm an immutable property named 'x'")

```

I haven't used it enough to be certain whether it can be used to create something "private" so you'd have to delve into that yourself, but `isinstance` may help.