DQN official tutorial

Why do we need non_final_mask? Why is the mask a tuple instead of a list?
https://pytorch.org/tutorials/intermediate/reinforcement_q_learning.html

What’s the difference between non_final_mask and non_final_next_states?
size of non_final_mask torch.Size([20])
size of non_final_next_states torch.Size([20, 3, 40, 80])

def optimize_model():
    if len(memory) < BATCH_SIZE:
        return
    transitions = memory.sample(BATCH_SIZE)
    # Transpose the batch (see http://stackoverflow.com/a/19343/3343043 for
    # detailed explanation).
    batch = Transition(*zip(*transitions))
  # Compute a mask of non-final states and concatenate the batch elements
    non_final_mask = torch.tensor(tuple(map(lambda s: s is not None,
                                          batch.next_state)), device=device, dtype=torch.uint8)
    non_final_next_states = torch.cat([s for s in batch.next_state
                                                if s is not None])
    state_batch = torch.cat(batch.state)
    action_batch = torch.cat(batch.action)
    reward_batch = torch.cat(batch.reward)

    # Compute Q(s_t, a) - the model computes Q(s_t), then we select the
    # columns of actions taken
    state_action_values = policy_net(state_batch).gather(1, action_batch)

    # Compute V(s_{t+1}) for all next states.
    next_state_values = torch.zeros(BATCH_SIZE, device=device)
    next_state_values[non_final_mask] = target_net(non_final_next_states).max(1)[0].detach()
    # Compute the expected Q values
    expected_state_action_values = (next_state_values * GAMMA) + reward_batch

    # Compute Huber loss
    loss = F.smooth_l1_loss(state_action_values, expected_state_action_values.unsqueeze(1))

    # Optimize the model
    optimizer.zero_grad()
    loss.backward()
    for param in policy_net.parameters():
        param.grad.data.clamp_(-1, 1)
    optimizer.step()
``

non-final mask are for states (s) whose next state (s’) are not going into final state.
since V(s’) = 0, the next_state_values remain zeros from the initialization