Chat room advice/help

Hi all.
Few quick questions today...
First, from what I've read, it seems like Java is the way to go for a chat room. However (and here comes another question...), has anyone seen tutorials on how to make a Java based chat room? Or any programming language for that matter. I'm not at all interested in borrowing some free chat room and using it, since my goal is to actually learn what I'm doing. I suppose source code would be ok, although I'm one to learn by doing as opposed to reading. Thanks in advance.

-Ben C