Re: [w3c/manifest] Add id member to manifest (#988)

@mgiuca commented on this pull request.



> +        </ol>
+        <aside class="example">
+          <p>Below table shows some example cases of the |identity| processing algorithm.</p>
+          <table class="data">
+            <tr>
+              <th>|json|["id"]</th>
+              <th>|manifest|["start_url"]</th>
+              <th>|manifest|["id"]</th>
+            </tr>
+            <tr>
+              <td><i>undefined</i></td>
+              <td>"https://example.com/my-app/start"</td>
+              <td>"https://example.com/my-app/start"</td>
+            </tr>
+            <tr>
+              <td>""</td>

I think I have a weak preference to agree with @marcoscaceres and treat it as missing (fallback to `start_url`).

Overall I think we've gone down a pretty confusing path with this being resolved against the origin but defaulting to `start_url`.

Not sure if it's too late to reconsider, but could we actually **resolve it against `start_url`**.

Pros:

* It just means if it's empty, or missing, it would naturally be equal to `start_url`, without needing a special case for "if it's empty".
* It makes it much more important to add a leading '/' to the `id`, to anchor it to the origin. Which is something I've been, on a few other threads, saying we should be recommending anyway, to really make it clear that this is a URL and the '/' makes it unambiguous that it is relative to the origin.

Cons:

* It means if you don't put a leading '/' on the `id`, if you change the `start_url` your identity will change, which destroys the whole point of having `id`.

So that Con doesn't sound great, right? But if we go with "`""` means `start_url`", that Con also applies, in that one special case — if you want the id to be empty you need to remember to write `"/"` rather than `""`. So maybe my suggestion makes sense and it's just quite important to prefix your `id` with `/`.

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