In that line of thinking, I would have to say it's more like dough. At the beginning good dough is very wet and sticky. If you are not decisive with your actions it will stick to your hands, your board, your table, your hair... As you work with it, it creates a workable ball that is dry and elastic. You can shape it with ease, it stretches paper thin without breaking, it rises high and light. The more skilful you are, the faster you can go from gloop that threatens to devour the world to something that is smooth as silk and almost feels alive. Those with little skill and experience never actually get there. They believe that beautiful well formed dough is a myth. They compensate by adding more and more flour so that the dough doesn't stick to their hands, in the end baking literal bricks. They pretend that the resulting bread is good.

Yes. Code is like dough.