title: Oracle's default date format is YYYY-MM-DD, WHY?
body: <p>Oracle's default date format is YYYY-MM-DD.  Which means if I do:</p>
  
  <pre><code> select some_date from some_table
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...I <em>lose</em> the time portion of my date.</p>
  
  <p>Yes, I know you can "fix" this with:</p>
  
  <pre><code> alter session set nls_date_format='yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss';
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But seriously, <em>why</em> isn't the above the default?  Especially in a DBMS where the two primary time-tracking data types (DATE and TIMESTAMP) <em>both</em> have a time component that includes (at least) accuracy down to 1 second.</p>