Order of ASes in the BGP Path

Hi, Is the order of AS numbers (except for perhaps the first one which denotes the AS the route was originated from) in the AS_PATH in BGP important? In fact, does anybody even care for the first AS number that appears in the Path? AFAIK, AS numbers in the BGP serves two purposes. It helps in loop detection and it helps us count the AS Path length. If this is the case then the order should not really matter much. My question is that whether the operators care if the order, for some reason changes? Eg. Legend: {} denotes the sequence, while [] denotes the set Path {1 2} [3 4] {5} Would somebody mind if this was represented as {1 2 5} [3 4] ? Thanks, Abhishek