I wrote a node something like once. I've also put a lot of effort into reinventing a very widely used module. I don't recommend it really. Its pretty hard to do well. Most attempts are half-assed. I think I rewrote from scratch my implementation about 6 times before I was happy with it.

For instance the anonnymonk elsewhere in this thread mentionedConfig::Inifiles, which IMO is begging for a rewrite. I use it all the time, and more than once I've thought to myself I could do better. I probably will never even make the attempt tho. It works and its there and to me its not that interesting a problem and the things I would do better wouldn't be that much better to make it worth the time.