Welcome to the Treehouse Community
Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.
Looking to learn something new?
Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.
Start your free trial![](https://ecs-static.teamtreehouse.com/assets/views/marketing/shared/community-banner-white-47072046c51352fe6a69f5e691ff5700b28bb11d45197d7bdf066d9ea3f72d0c.webp)
![Blaize Pennington](https://uploads.teamtreehouse.com/production/profile-photos/1795202/micro_untitled__160_of_167_.jpg)
Blaize Pennington
13,878 PointsWhat ever happened to putting a forward slash in self closing tags?
So I've known basic HTML for a while and I just recently started with treehouse and decided to refresh my memory on everything. I used to use self closing tags like this:
<input type="text" id="name" name="user_name" />
<br />
However now treehouse is telling me to leave these forward slashes out all together. Is this new to HTML 5 or is it just a semantics thing?
2 Answers
![idan ben yair](https://uploads.teamtreehouse.com/production/profile-photos/1178562/micro_idan.jpg)
idan ben yair
10,288 PointsHi Blaize,
Check this link out: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3558119/are-self-closing-tags-valid-in-html5
Self-closing tags are valid in HTML5, but not required.
Let me know if that works :)
![James Barnett](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/43ea08b4fc547e8a5da87c207bea2123?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fecs-static.teamtreehouse.com%2Fassets%2Fcontent%2Fdefault_avatar-445fbbabfc8dc9188fb5967fe43322ee0c3e0dd1e10f378bf8343784af5a13eb.webp&r=pg)
James Barnett
39,199 PointsIs this new to HTML 5 or is it just a semantics thing?
That was an XHTML thing, XHTML was dropped in HTML5.