[Haskell-beginners] Why is the the transpose function in Data.List more complicated?

Transpose in Data.List is the following: transpose :: [[a]] -> [[a]] transpose [] = [] transpose ([] : xss) = transpose xss transpose ((x:xs) : xss) = (x : [h | (h:_) <- xss]) : transpose (xs : [ t | (_:t) <- xss]) Yet this seems to work. transp :: [[b]] -> [[b]] transp ([]:_) = [] transp rows = map head rows : transp (map tail rows) Why is the the transpose function in Data.List more complicated? -- -- Regards, KC