Iterators can get very ugly. I like this when there is a need to access elem a lot inside the loop: for (size_t i = 0, iEnd = elems.size(); i < iEnd; ++i)

Iterators can get very ugly. I like this when there is a need to access elem a lot inside the loop: for (size_t i = 0, iEnd = elems.size(); i < iEnd; ++i) { Elem &elem = elems[i]; // deal with elem } Of course the new C++11 syntax is king.