[iamaleksey]

This is not true. See this for example: http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/thrift-to-cql3

You can do CREATE TABLE schemaless (id blob, name blob, value blob, PRIMARY KEY (id, name)) WITH COMPACT STORAGE; and have a 'schemaless' table, essenitally, just as with Thrift.

This is not a workaround either - this is first-class supported, just as you can read/write from/to 'schemaless' thrift columnfamilies using CQL.

[grizzles]

Sure, would you mind showing me how to use CQL to insert data into an old-school style Column Family that was created with the Thrift interface? Linus Torvalds would be up in arms if he saw this kind of client facing API breakage.

[iamaleksey]

CQL is compatible with Thrift-created column families (the inverse is not true, though). Just do a DESCRIBE SCHEMA from cqlsh and see how CQL interprets a particular Thrift-created column family, then use regular INSERTs.