PR: Use modern packaging instead of deprecated distutils for version parse

[CAM-Gerlach]

Replaces using the deprecated distutils for version comparison with the modern standard replacement packaging, and adds the latter to the install_requires.

Fixes #234
Closes #235 (supersedes it)

[CAM-Gerlach]

Would be good to merge PR #262 first, so we can rebase this on that just to be 100% sure everything still works on the new platforms/versions and stricter build and test process.

[dalthviz]

Thanks @CAM-Gerlach ! This LGTM 👍

Also, after merging this, could you update PR #262 to have this changes? Thanks!

[CAM-Gerlach]

I would normally do that, but the only problem is if I do so on that PR, I would lose all the CI runs for each individual commit that I took great care to preserve when rebaseing that one, keeping a record of the CI output and behavior after each significant change. That said, it is pretty unlikely that this would pass on the old CIs and fail on the new ones, given its such a small change, and with that PR the CIs will run on push as well (to catch these sorts of situations) and notify us right away (which I will be watching for), in which case I can immediately follow up with a fix.