Order of Rake Test Task

I have a rake file with three tasks, which I need to execute in order.

require 'rake/testtask'

file 'some_binary_file.elf' do
    puts 'fetching file from server ...'
    # this task connects to a server and downloads some binaries
    # it takes a few seconds to run
end

task flash_application: 'some_binary_file.elf' do
    puts 'flashing the file to the hardware ...'
    # this task copies a binary file to the flash memory
    # of some external hardware, also takes a few seconds
end

Rake::TestTask(:hardware) do |t|
   puts 'running tests ...'
   f.test_files = FileList['test/**/*_test.rb']
end

rake default: [:flash_application, :hardware]

when I run $ rake in a terminal, it produces the following output.

running tests ...                    < ---- (not actually running)
fetching file from server ...
flashing the file to the hardware ...

I would expect rake to run the tasks in the order I specified, but It seems to always execute the test task first. It is remarkable that the tests do not run - but the output of the task creation is produced anyway.

Solution

Found the Bug - This problem was not ruby / rake specific. The flash_application task changes the working directory. Because of that, there is no Rakefile with a task 'hardware' in the current working directory. But researching for this bug yielded some interesting insights.

Ruby arrays are ordered, if one want to execute task in an order it is sufficient to define them in execution order in an array i.e.

task some_task: [:first, :second, :third]
Rake::TestTask.new defines a plain old rake task when called. That means, when rake is called, ruby creates an instance of a Rake::TestTask. All code passed into the constructor is executed / yielded during this phase. This yields the described behavior from the original question.