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It runs on the workstation. You are correct of course, as always. But with rare exceptions, what iSeries workstation today is not Windows?
But, a program running on Windows has very few of the advantages of the iSeries. It doesn't have a job log. It doesn't have the program messaging framework of the iSeries (*ESCAPE messages when an error occurs, for example.) It won't have the forward-compatibility that the iSeries is famous for (e.g. the next version of Windows could break your program.) It's really not iSeries programming at all, it's Windows programming.
For the vast majority of Windows programmers, it doesn't make sense to learn RPG. They're already familiar with languages like C++, or VB. Or if they're more modern, they're working in languages like C# and Java. Why would they want to convert to RPG?
Likewise, for the typical RPG programmer, they want to work on the iSeries. They're familiar with the iSeries, and like the advantages that it offers and don't particularly want to switch to Windows.
For those that do want to switch to Windows, they have to consider whether there's any future in VARPG for them? Will there be a job in VARPG when they're looking for it? Or would they be better off learning one of the more prevalent Windows languages?
It seems to me that for VARPG to work, it'd have to run on the iSeries, and have all of the advantages of running on the iSeries without the huge overhead of Java. That's not possible as it stands because the iSeries only supports green screen terminals, it doesn't support GUI terminal emulators.
That's why web applications are growing in popularity. The programs run on the iSeries where you get all of the iSeries advantages. You can write them in any iSeries language. You don't have to have any special software to view them, just point your browser at the iSeries. They work very well over the internet, and can be secured easily so that a VPN is not required to use them securely over the internet. They're not limited to Windows as a front-end.
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