Static class methods

[Alex Shindich]

Just out of my curiosity, have any of you ladies and gentlemen experienced a
need for an equivalent of C++/Java static method?
Because I have, but it is impossible add them to Python classes -- all class
methods are treated as instance methods.
This is especially unfortunate given that local functions now work properly
thanks to PEP 227.
I was thinking that a new keyword "unbound" could be used to identify
functions that belong to a class but do not expect "self" as their first
attribute.
>From outside the class "unbound" methods would be invoked by specifying the
class name -- Foo.my_static_method (). From within the class they would work
similar to local functions that are defined at the class level. The __ trick
should work for the "unbound" methods as well to allow for creation of
private static methods.

Examples:
>>>class Foo:
    """This is a sample class..."""

    __myPrivateStaticVariable  = None

    unbound getMyPrivateStaticVariable ():
        """getMyPrivateStaticVariable (obj) -> obj

        This method returns the value stored in private static variable...
        """
        return Foo.__myPrivateStaticVariable


    unbound modifyMyPrivateStaticVariable (obj):
        """modifyMyPrivateStaticVariable (obj) -> void

        This method assigns obj to the private static variable...
        """
        Foo.__myPrivateStaticVariable = obj

>>> type (Foo.modifyMyPrivateStaticVariable)
<type 'unbound method'>
>>> type (Foo.getMyPrivateStaticVariable ())
<type 'None'>
>>> Foo.modifyMyPrivateStaticVariable ("abc")
>>> Foo.getMyPrivateStaticVariable ()
"abc"
>>>