http://e-docs.bea.com/wlp/docs81/whitepapers/netix/body.html#1055993
Once the control tree is built and all the instance variables are set on the controls, the control tree is run through its lifecycle. The lifecycle can be thought of as a set of methods on the controls that are called on in a well-defined order. The lifecycle methods are as follows:
init()
loadState()
handlePostbackData()
raiseChangeEvents()
preRender()
saveState()
render()
dispose()
These methods are called in depth first order. In other words, all the init() methods are called, followed by the loadState() methods, and so on. They will also be called depth first. Example, given the following control tree, the order in which the init() method would be called is: C1, C2, C5, C3, C6, C7, C4, then the loadState() method would be called in the same order, and so on.
The last method to be called would be C4's dispose():
