Here is the login procedure:

  * Send out some xml spam to "create a stream"
  * Receive a stream reply, with feature sets.
  * Send out starttls
  * Get a reply back
  * Switch to secure mode
  * Send out some xml spam to "create a stream" inside the first stream
  * Receive reply back, check supported auth modes
  * Send out auth
  * Receive reply back
  * Send out some *MORE* xml spam to "create a stream" inside the first 2
  * Receive reply back, with features
  * Bind
  * Create session

THEN you can do something useful. Most of the verboseness is idiotic XML:

eg <proceed xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-tls"/>

Those xmlns's are everywhere, and are stupidly verbose.

You can write IRC commands by hand into telnet. But typing in xml is just not feasable since it's so stupidly verbose.