I like the interpretation of 'conservative'/'liberal' as applied to engineering practices which Steve Yegge wrote (in a lost Google+ post): "acceptability of breaking code in production".
'Conservative' developers really wants to 'conserve' what's there. I feel that description suits both the 'draw UML diagrams with enterprise patterns' as well as 'loves dependent types' kinds of people.
In this sense a liberal 'keep code simple' is more about things like "You Ain't Gonna Need It", and focussing on writing what code is needed now. (Since it doesn't matter if it needs to be broken later as requirements change).
'Conservative' developers really wants to 'conserve' what's there. I feel that description suits both the 'draw UML diagrams with enterprise patterns' as well as 'loves dependent types' kinds of people.
In this sense a liberal 'keep code simple' is more about things like "You Ain't Gonna Need It", and focussing on writing what code is needed now. (Since it doesn't matter if it needs to be broken later as requirements change).