Jobs are returned in the following order:
...
- If the client requests all 'not-completed' Jobs (Jobs in the
'pending', 'processing', 'pending-held', and 'processing-stopped'
states), then Jobs are returned in relative chronological order
of expected time to complete (based on whatever scheduling
algorithm is configured for the Printer object).
For a Printer with two Postscript output devices capable of running in
parallel, for example, it can be proven mathematically that it's impossible
to predict the order of completion in less time than it would take to
interpret all the Jobs (due to the Halting Theorem). Then there are all
the other factors you mentioned, like priorities and paper required, not to
mention "job-hold-until", etc.
-Carl