For Integer arithmetic (where 3/2=1)
bashecho $(( 1+1 ))fishmath 1+1zsh*echo $((1+1))
*: and ksh93, yash
For floating point arithmetic (where 3/2=1.5)
bashawk "BEGIN {print 10/3}"(low precision)bashecho "10/3"|bc -l(high precision)fishmath "scale=4;-s4 10/3"3zsh*echo $((10./3))
*: and ksh93, yash
You can of course configure your shell to use awk with minimum typing like calc 10/3 (see notes on how to do it for bash1 and fish2).
The main reason for suggesting awk for bash is that it's preinstalled on almost all Unix-like OSes and is reasonably light (there is of course the cost of starting a process) with a less precise but more human-friendly output than bc -l which prints 20 decimal digits (although you can certainly tweak awk to get more decimal digits).
##Notes##
(1) How to use the simplified syntax in bash###
Add this bash function to your ~/.bashrc:
calc(){ awk "BEGIN { print $*}"; }
(2) How to use the simplified syntax in fish###
Create a calc fish function (i.e. a text file named /home/ndemou/.config/fish/functions/calc.fish):
function calc
awk "BEGIN{ print $argv }" ;
end