GAMMA is NOT a computer program, it is a platform upon which one can easily build programs. In many respects GAMMA is similar to a subroutine library. Such libraries are commonly used in programming to reduce the amount of labor needed in order to accomplish a simulation.

By including appropriate libraries one reduces the amount of new coding that must be done. The above figure depicts (in green) a typical program with and without utilization of libraries. The one on the left, without libraries, is longer and as a result: work intensive, difficult to maintain, and error prone. Worse, the programmer wastes valuable time writing code for common algorithms (such as matrix multiplications) rather than focusing directly on the simulation problem itself.

Part of GAMMA is just that, a library of subroutines. These are tailored specifically to deal with problems in magnetic resonance (MR). Of much greater significance is that GAMMA also provides data types commonly used to formulate MR problems. The depiction of a program using GAMMA would be as follows.

Not only are GAMMA based programs shorter from utilization of the MR tailored subroutines, they tend to be clear and concise because source code can be written which closely mimics the mathematical or experimental formulation of the problem.