maven class path order documentation

[ma...@barclays.com.INVALID]

In the release notes for Maven 2.0.9:
http://people.apache.org/~jvanzyl/maven-3.1.1/docs/2.0.9/release-notes.html
It says: "introduced deterministic ordering of dependencies on the classpath. In the past, natural set ordering was used and this lead to odd results. The ordering is now preserved from your pom, with dependencies added by inheritance added last"
Is this info still current?  Is it documented anywhere aside from this release note?  If not, perhaps it should be?  And more details would be nice too.  For instance:

*         Suppose my module M has parent P and grandparent G.   Also, M depends on A and B, in that order.  Further, suppose A depends on X, which in turn depends on Y.  Meanwhile, B depends on Z.

Based on the sentence above, both of these are plausible orders:

a.    M, A, B, X, Z, Y, P, G

b.    M, A, X, Y, B, Z, P, G

c.     Maybe others too?

*         How does this relate to the dependency "mediation" algorithm maven uses when there are conflicting versions of a dependency requested?

As far as I understand, that uses a breadth-first search, where the parent pom comes FIRST rather than last.

Does that mean that mediation algorithm is basically unrelated to class path algorithm, or do they still have some things in common?

E.g., ordering (a) above is also a breadth-first search, whereas (b) is depth-first.
Any words of wisdom would be nice.

Thanks,
Mark.

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