ISO 8601
ISO 8601
ISO 8601
27.2.2013 is fine for handwriting on paper
For your example, maybe. If someone writes 8/3/2012, you don't know which is month/day. And if they shorten it to 08/03/12 you literally can't even conclusively determine the year, much less the month or day...
8/3/2012
You do. 8th of Feb in the entire civilised world and possibly 3rd of something in Trumpistan.
8/3/2012
8th of Feb
Feb
You uh… you sure about that?
March
Why should I?
Which month is 27?
The one after the 26th.
Smarch2: Electric Boogaloo
That's what we Europeans call a "petty answer to the disgrace that is Amarican military time" (not the be confused with regular Amarican time and dates, which don't allow overflow, as far as I'm aware). The date described above is clearly "the second of March, 2015" or 2015-03-02.