Amidst all my travelling and whatnot, I realized I hadn't written a wrap-up for the latest SimpleQuiz, Launching Windows.
The camps were rather divided on this one -- with roughly half voting for a Javascript pop-up solution, and the other half voting for using XHTML 1.0 Transitional, which allows for the target attribute without incident.
The argument I found interesting, was "you should never launch links in new windows". While there may be moral opposition to triggering unwanted events for the user, in reality, designers and developers alike will no doubt find themselves in a situation with an employer or client where this is a requirement.
So often, it's not a moral decision, but a business one. A sometimes unfortunate reality. In a perfect world (perhaps one's personal web site) it's easy to stick to ideals. But in the real world it's not. Decisions are made that may or may not involve the web designer, and the requirements must then be dealt with. Sometimes you have to make the best out of what you've got.