I personally prefer Guava's immutable collections:

    List<String> fruits = ImmutableList.of("apple", "orange", "pear");

It also works for sets and maps:

    Set<String> fruits = ImmutableSet.of("apple", "orange", "pear");
    Map<String, Integer> fruitCounts = ImmutableMap.of("apple", 3, "orange", 2, "pear", 6);

http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/wiki/ImmutableColle...