I bought this book along with a 2nd HTML games programming book from the same publisher, "Using games to learn HTML5".

This book by far had more realistic and modern example games.

The example games of bowling and meteor shooting are quite fun and relevant.

The "Using Games" book had text based games like dice and quiz and hangman with primitive graphics, circa 1995.

I've been building websites since FrontPage was the standard and everything was done in quirks mode level books. The "learn Adobe AIR" book I started with assumed you had already written several AIR applications. The "beginners JavaScript" book I started with years ago assumed you already worked with jQuery and YUI on a daily basis and dreamed in prototypes.

Foundation Canvas is different. It's actually approachable for those of us with zero experience working with HTML5 markup. And that's fantastic! Since much of HTML5 manipulation is done through JavaScript, the book starts with a spectacular introduction to how JS works, how to use libraries to optimize your workflow, and how to use JS with HTML5. If you already know what jQuery is or how to build an object prototype you can probably skip this chapter, but it's still a great building block for the rest of the book.

Every example throughout the book is very detailed, walks you through an explanation of what each piece of code does, and builds on the lessons learned in the previous chapter. powered games, and the author gives you a preview of what else HTML5 can be used for by explaining further libraries you can use, additional APIs that add 3D support, and even his own HTML5 game, Rawkets.

This book is perfect for both beginning developers and experienced ones who want to grow their skillset into HTML5.

This book has been instrumental in pushing my understanding of how to draw and animate using the Canvas API but also introducing me to physics and the mathematics involved with creating games. While those concepts can be complex the author does a good job of breaking them down and explaining them clearly.

If you want to develop a good understanding of how to use HTML5 Canvas and how to write games within Canvas this is the book for you. Yes it is a foundation, it gives you a foundation in this new technology and gives you enough exposure to the core concepts to competently go out and start making things yourself. There is always more that they could have demonstrated and as pointed out several times in the book if you want to delve right into the guts of game physics and the like there are entire books written on that one aspect. The author has written a great book which has been invaluable to me and I would highly recommend it.