Why are assertEquals() parameters in the order (expected, actual)?

Question

Why do so many assertEquals() or similar function take the expected value as first parameter and the actual one as second ?
This seems counter-intuitive to me,

Answer 1

The answer from Kent Beck, creator of SUnit and JUnit (where possibly this convention originates), is:

Line a bunch of assertEquals in a row. Having expected first makes them read better.

However, this is so opposite to my own experience that I have to wonder if I'm misunderstanding it. Here's what I often see in tests:

assertEquals(12345, user.getId());
assertEquals("kent", user.getUsername());
assertEquals("Kent Beck", user.getName());

I would think this would read better with the actual value first. That puts more of the repetitive boilerplate together, aligning the method calls whose values we're testing:

assertEquals(user.getId(), 12345);
assertEquals(user.getUsername(), "kent");
assertEquals(user.getName(), "Kent Beck");

(And there are other reasons that I prefer this order, but for the purpose of this question about why it's the other way, Kent's reasoning appears to be the answer, even if I haven't understood it.)