I don't think improvisational programming (as I understand it) is equivalent to data entry. That also was not what I was describing.

You seem to be a fairly adept programmer. The concept of improvisational programming makes sense for you - you draw on years of experience and training (formal, or not) to feel out a concept when you have a goal in mind but no clear way to get there. You probably perform many small experiments to learn more about the intricacies of whatever you are working on. You can do all this because you've progressed past the beginning stages.

Most beginners simply aren't capable of this. There are too many blind alleys. Too many traps. It's not that I discourage self-directed learning, experimenting or researching - all are essential to learning computer science. Rather I've seen far too many students simply resort to guess and check methodology when face with a problem. This isn't the kind of guided exploration that comes with experience but: "Adding 1 to that index didn't work - I wonder if 2 will? 3? 4? 10? Oh! 12 works! Great - I'm done!"

Incidentally, I have done data entry. My first computer was an Apple II. I used to type in programs from magazines without really understand what they were doing. Even worse, I typed in raw hexadecimal program data. I know what it's like to type something in you don't understand, find out it's wrong, tweak it, and try again ad infinitum (or so it seemed). "Does A9 work? What about AA? AC? ...AF works! Great - I'm done!"