in a pickle here with sorting and popping from a vector

[Amleto]

here's how I'd do it. No need to sort yourself - just let vector.erase(...) do it.

#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

template< class T>
void GetNext( vector<T> & vec, typename vector<T>::iterator& position, int step )
{
  for( int i = 0; i < step; ++i )
  {
    ++position; // should be a bit more careful here about receiving .end(), but meh.
    if( position == vec.end() )
      position = vec.begin();
  }
}

template< class T>
void DeleteEntry( vector<T> & vec, typename vector<T>::iterator& position )
{
  position = vec.erase(position);
  if( position == vec.end() )
    position = vec.begin();
}

template<class T>
void PrintVec( vector<T> const & vec)
{
  cout << endl;

  vector<T>::const_iterator it = vec.begin();
  vector<T>::const_iterator end = vec.end();
  for(; it != end; ++it)
  {
    cout << *it << endl;
  }

  cout << endl;
}

int main()
{
  vector<string> names;
  names.push_back("bill");
  names.push_back("sue");
  names.push_back("al");
  names.push_back("may");
  names.push_back("gin");
  names.push_back("tim");

  int goose = 3;
  vector<string>::iterator position = names.begin();

  while( names.size() )
  {
    PrintVec( names );

    GetNext( names, position, goose-1 );
    DeleteEntry( names, position );
    
  }

  cin.get();
}