I see that Akira Tsukamoto went for a libmraa approach to programming for i2c bus.
I found python-smbus was a quick and easy way to get connected up. I can also recommend i2cdetect for querying the hardware. As my hardware was originally designed to be used with a Raspberry Pi, I used a simple level shifter circuit to connect it up, one of these for each of SDA and SCL.