I’ve been spending some time (along with an excellent team on a package management system for CodeIgniter called Sparks. Sparks makes it really easy to distribute CodeIgniter packages. For example, I made a simple spark called gravatar_helper which just provides a small helper class for working with Gravatar. To install the spark, you’d use:

$ php tools/spark install -v1.2 gravatar_helper

And once the package is installed, you can get started using the helper right away:

<?php
function index() {
  $this->load->spark('gravatar_helper/1.2');
  echo img(Gravatar_helper::from_email('john.crepezzi@gmail.com'));
}

We’re really excited for what this means for sharing and versioning CI code, getting libraries you use commonly set up quickly, and discovering new packages other people have built. So if you’re a CI developer, head over to http://getsparks.org/ and see what you can find (and contribute)!