Um... maybe it's verbose because you're trying to be too clever? :-P How about auto it = channel_widgets.begin(); while (it != channel_widgets.end())

Um... maybe it's verbose because you're trying to be too clever? :-P How about auto it = channel_widgets.begin(); while (it != channel_widgets.end()) if (it->getType() == type) goto found; // error found: // whatever I kinda hate myself every time I write such for-loop, but it's still more succint than any variant of find_if. Generally, I use "trivial" STL algorithms (find, find_if, for_each, ...) only if I can reuse the functor several times. Otherwise it's not worth the hassle. PS: you can do it also without goto... use "break" after if, and after while you write if (it == channel_widgets.end()) whatever; // not_found