Sort of. It’s more akin to design guidelines.

By "literally" I mean that the name for it is the Code of Law, with a civil code, and a criminal code. And this usage of "code" predates computer programming by many centuries!

is it safe?

Absolutely not. It regularly performs invalid rights on unallocated memory and even kills people.

does it map closely enough for an obvious replacement ...uhhh language?

So let's put it in a code versioning system.