TL;DR Where do I start with learning how to make interactive websites (with javascript)?
I have previous experience with Java(I'm a CS student at UW), and I understand the basic concepts behind making a static web page and hosting it online (html and css concepts, as well as ftping into a webserver and changing stuff), but what I really want to do is learn how to make interactive pages. I've looked at javascript and PHP, and I understand their basic differences, but I don't know where to get started. I'd like to learn something similar to Java (javascript seems like a really obvious choice) just for comfort's sake, where you can write your own classes and then interact with them etc. Are there good tutorials for leaning javascript basics and then moving up? I'm thinking of something like "take the string typed in the text box and reverse it" level stuff, up to writing more complicated recursive methods etc. A lot of the stuff I've found just googling around seems either very basic or extremeley specific. Does anyone have any suggestions?
http://www.w3schools.com/ is a good website to learn from. I understand that it is focused around HTML and CSS but there are resources for all of the major web development languages and to start. Usually starting out by learning the language completely is your best idea. You have to learn how to really use a hammer before making a house effectively. Starting from the bottom up really will help tho, JavaScript and Web Development is very simple comparitively to C++ and Java (Tho for a good reason).
Using Google will help with specific style approaches. On W3Schools, go for learning all of the JavaScript subforms, AJAX JSON and JQuery. They are all very useful tools.
www.codeademy.com is a really good one. It has interactive and step by step programs that lead you through eveything. There are also multiple 'couses' you can do ranging from basic HTML and CSS to Python and Java. I've used it in the past and it is really good.
Also, it has an active forum/Q&A community if u get stuck. :)