Learn Python the Hard Way is often blasted for adhering to that sentiment. I think it has value. I think LPtHW perhaps attracts ire first for other things, like a now dated bias towards python 2 over 3, but whenever I recommend it to beginners, people always get mad over its emphasis on memorization.

I get what they're saying (probably from dealing with too much rote school work in the past), programming is more about critical thinking than memory, but it really helps to have the core constructs memorized in a language. If you have to google "loops in python" every time, it's not going to go well.