All column values that were declared `string` in thrift are now `binary`. (See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-29.)
For Java that means byte[] instead of String. For Python, because thrift treatment of `string` is broken, that actually means no change -- values were str before and remain str. I don't know the details of the other thrift generators but it probably follows one of those two patterns. :) -Jonathan
