[split] Composer?

Composer obviously has a lot of traction. today. but if you think it will be around forever maybe you should check out PHP Pear.
oh you can't do that today because the php pear website is completely down
http://pear.php.net

well gee remember sparks for codeigniter? the final package solution for codeigniter?
what a coincidence its website is completely down as well.
http://getsparks.org

i am writing this on november 30 2015 so hopefully both websites come back up soon - but you get the point.

Aside from pear.php.net just experiencing technical issues right now, all of this is not coincidental. Contrary to your opinion, it's a reason in favor of Composer.

Composer is a replacement of both PEAR and Sparks, and it didn't become that after they died. They died because Composer did things better and killed them. In fact, Sparks was an isolated, CI-specific attempt at building what Composer is today.

I too don't like some things about Composer, but you're just looking for reasons to dismiss it.