What you're seeing is an illusion. Since you're looking at STDOUT (the target of print) and STDERR (the target of die) at the same time, it looks like that's the order it's executing in. In all actuality, it's happening in the order you expect, but the buffers are being flushed in the "wrong" order, creating the discrepancy.

Hope this helps!

--jwest

-><- -><- -><- -><- -><-
All things are Perfect
    To every last Flaw
    And bound in accord
         With Eris's Law
 - HBT; The Book of Advice, 1:7