Yahoo, you do have something Google needs to catch up to!

Today, I was surprised. By Yahoo. After a long time. And it's delightful. Maybe I'm late at this, but Yahoo, I've got to say, "Cool! Very cool!"

What is this noise all about? Well, it's about the Yahoo! Developer Network. More lovable is the Developer Resources page.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you find "Libraries & Best Practices" and "Language Centers". I've obviously not gone through the entire content, but a browse-through was very eye-catching. And I think every Web Developer or anyone just interested in learning about performance on the Web should read the Exceptional Performance page.

And oh, the language centers. All of them have some tutorials on the language in general, but mostly focus on using the various Yahoo! APIs.

Only, oh poor Yahoo, its been so long since I've stopped your services, and I'm now very dependent on Google.

But to note, Google has to catch up quite a bit, in terms of API. (Okay all you Google fan boys, I am not saying Yahoo has a superior API, just certain things that Google lags behind in.)

Some thoughts:

- Yahoo! Media Player. At first sight, it might seem to be just a plain embedded music player, but the wiki along with the Yahoo! Music API makes it very cool.

- Google had a 'bookmark' feature, but later revamped it to a bookmark section in Google Notebook. Still, I find Delicious a better choice (Delicious was acquired by Yahoo, in 2005).

- Yahoo! Finance is much better than Google Finance, any day.

- Yahoo! Pipes is plain awesome. Really, I haven't found a parallel.

Frankly, after all this, I don't have a hope that Yahoo will rise from the ashes, nor anything as fairytale-ish, but the lost respect for Yahoo is back. It still has some awesome engineers.

I still respect you Yahoo! I still do.