Certain personality types fare better at coming up with clean designs whereby problems can be solved (or sometimes partially solved) in a simple, elegant way, and take measures to avoid perceived blemishes in a beautiful design. For this discussion, we’ll call these folks elegantists.

Certain personality types take delight in prickly problems, sorting through the myriad requirements, and crafting a complete functional solution – maybe not as pure, but definitely working. For this discussion, we’ll call these folks practicalists.

This is from this week’s XML Deviant, On Practical Elegance, which goes on to characterise the REST vs WS-* debates as elegantist vs. practicalist.

I prefer the terms Roundhead and Cavalier myself.

Elegantists/Roundheads are Puritans who seek to reduce a problem domain to a small, well-chosen set of primitives (dismantling gaudy cathedrals like WS-* in the process).

Practicalists/Cavaliers are Royalist courtiers, adept at negotiating the many lethal nuances and minor scandals of complex protocols.